








\K* V "^ •His* /jiT ^ oVJIak* V "^ 







SEEING AMERICA 

INCLUDING THE PANAMA EXPOSITIONS 



A DESCRIPTIVE AND PICTURESQUE 
JOURNEY THROUGH ROMANTIC AND 
HISTORIC CITIES AND PLACES, NATURAL 
WONDERS, SCENIC MARVELS OF NATIONAL 
PRIDE AND INTEREST 



By LOGAN iVlARSHALL 

Author of 'The Story of the Panama Canal," 
"Myths and Legends of All Nations," etc 



BUtiBtrstfd 



Philadelphia 

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 

Publishers 



^']''i'^\i^'b 






Copyiight, 1913, by 
L. T. Mysm 




JAN 28 1916 

©Ji,A420r)71 



INTRODUCTION 

THERE IS magic in the word ''travel": it kindles 
something deep and primordial within us and makes us 
rise to welcome the man who has been afar as we would 
to greet a royal guest. We will travel if we can, and if 
not, then at least we will hsten to the strange and splen- 
did experiences of those who do. 

Throughout the ages it has been so. The men who 
went down to the sea in ships were the most honored and 
the most envied among all early peoples, and the wander- 
ing singer was received with joy, not so much for his 
music as because he brought news from afar, fascinating 
stories of distant, unknown countries to which few of 
those who listened could ever hope to go. 

Travehng has become less and less difficult, of course, 
and in this twentieth century of steam and steel is quite 
within the Umits of the possible even for the average man; 
and the tourist is known throughout the length and 
breadth of the land, looked upon with something akin 
to awe in the small towns of the East, and regarded with 
mild amusement in the West where one sometimes 
journeys several hundred miles to spend the day with 
a friend. 

Yet, though we Americans are a nation of travelers, 
few of us, except through necessity, spend much time or 
effort in seeing America. That is ''home" and accord- 
ingly discounted. England, France, Italy, Japan, China, 
lure us with the charm of the far-away, bhnd us to the 

3 



INTRODUCTION 



truth that it is not the distant that is always most 
enchanting, but the picturesque or the magnificent, 
wherever it may be. Americans travel all over the world 
and find no city so wonderful as New York with its 
canyon streets and seething masses gathered together 
from every nation; they visit Asia to study forgotten 
civilizations when Redskins still live on the Western 
plains and cliff dwellings reveal strange stories of the past; 
they take long pilgrimages to the Alps and the Himalayas 
while the most stupendous sculpture of Nature is unveiled 
in the valley of the Colorado. Perhaps some day, when 
Europe like America shall have become a nation of 
travelers and sung for us the praises of American cities 
and resorts and great scenic playgrounds, we as a nation 
shall begin to realize their importance. 

Here and there, it is true, we find men and women who 
have journeyed from Land's End to Golden Gate and 
found America good. They are enthusiastic people 
always, with a fine flavor of patriotism about them and a 
quiet inner satisfaction at having discovered within their 
own country such abundant resources for their refresh- 
ment and inspiration. It is to these especially that this 
book will appeal, recalling by word and picture many 
hours of never-to-be-forgotten pleasure. 

It will appeal also to those — and they are an ever- 
increasing number — who would travel if they could, 
and who long to know more about the places of which 
they have heard. The author, who has been in the 
position both of those who long to go and of those who 
have been, has endeavored to clear up the hazy mental 
pictures of the former, making their day-dreams more 
real and abiding, and to revivify the memories of the 



INTRODUCTION 



latter. After all, ''home-keeping youths "need not have 
''homely wits," for one may read of the Great Plains 
and breathe their spirit even while one stays quietly at 
home going the daily round of office and shop. 

The author has been fortunate enough to have lived 
in both East and West and to have caught something of 
the viewpoint of both. In the final analysis, it is the 
whole of America that we love, North and South, East 
and West. 

"Lo! body and soul! — this land! 
Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and 
The sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships; 
The varied and ample land, — the South 

And the North in the light — Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri, 
And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with grass and corn." 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 
Modern Towers of Babel 

PAGB 

New York the City of Cities — The Mecca of Americans — 
MaTximoth Skyscrapers — Commerce Encircling the Seven Seas — 
The Gathering Ground of Many Peoples — Historic Places — 
Fifth Avenue— The Great White Way— Wall Street— River- 
side Drive — A People's University — The American Rhine — 
West Point 13 

CHAPTER II 

Ideas and Ideals 

Boston, the Ancient Hub — Our Decorous New England 
Sister — Fundamental Ideals — Sacred American Relics — The 
Cradle of Liberty — Boston Common — The Public Library — 
Art and Music— "The Mother Church "—Brave Old Harvard- 
Boston Harbor 26 

CHAPTER III 

The Birthplace of American Liberty 

Philadelphia, City of Origins — Remnants of Colonial 
Days — Independence Hall — Where the First Flag Was Made — 
The City of Homes— The Quaker City— A Park of Three 
Thousand Acres — Locomotives to the Whole World — A Pioneer 
Shipyard — A Place of Vast Industry 38 

CHAPTER IV 

Playgrounds of the East 

Under the Blue Skies of Maine — The Fashionable World 
of Bar Harbor — In the White Mountains — Newport, Where 
Millionaires Congregate — Atlantic City, a Great Democratic 
Gathering Place 48 

7 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER V 
Natueal Wonders of the East 

PAGE 

The Fairy Realm of Luray Caverns — Mammoth Cave, 
Kentucky — Natural Bridge — Niagara of a Thousand Moods ... 58 

CHAPTER VI 

Famous Battlefields of Freedom 

The First Great Battleground of the Revolution — Where 
Washington and the Patriots Were Well Tested — The Turning 
Point of the CivU War 67 

CHAPTER VII 

The City Beautiful 

The Nation's Capital — Capitol Hill and Its Buildings — 
The Library of Congress — Other Public Buildings — Where 
Pan- Americans Congregate — The Corcoran Art Gallery — 
Smithsonian Institution — Washington Monument — Beloved 
Mt. Vernon 76 

CHAPTER VIII 

The Confederate Capital 

Richmond of Yesterday and Today — Captain John Smith 
and "None Such" Land — Capital of the Confederacy — The 
State Capitol — Other Historic Places 90 

CHAPTER IX 

Where Steel is King 

A City of Superlatives — Pittsburgh Development — Artistic 
Buildings — Mammoth Industries — The Smoky City 95 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER X 

The Queen of the Great Lakes 

PAGE 

Chicago, a City of Endless Enterprise — Realizing Ideals — 
Lake Michigan and Its Moods— "The Loop"— The Stock- 
yards — The Great Central Market — Chicago as a Summer 
Resort — A City at Play — A Twentieth-Century University — 
The Civic Center 100 

CHAPTER XI 

In the Land of Sunshine 

Florida of Orange Groves and Flowers — The Oldest City 
in America — The American Riviera — Mysterious Region of 
The Everglades 108 

CHAPTER XII 

Of Mardi Gras Fame 

The New-Old City of New Orleans — Latin Gayety — Mardi 
Gras — Relics of French Days — The Ancient Cabildo — The St. 
Louis Cathedral — The French Market — Hotel Royal — The 
French Opera House — The Place Prepared for Napoleon — 
The Twentieth-Century City 112 

CHAPTER XIII 

Among the Cotton Fields 

Atlanta the Metropolis of the Southeast — Civil War Mem- 
ories — "Marching through Georgia" — The City Today — 
Snowy Fields of Cotton 120 

CHAPTER XIV 

A Trip to Panama 

First Dreams of a Canal — The United States to the Res- 
cue — Gigantic Obstacles — Meeting All Emergencies — A Battle 

Won 123 

9 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XV 
The Cradle of Texas Liberty p^^.^. 

Remnant of Spanish Days — The Siege of the Alamo — 
San Antonio of the Mexicans — Cowboy Land — A Growing 
City 131 

CHAPTER XVI 

More Beautiful than the Sahara 
Romance of the Southwest — Ancient Santa Fe — Indian 
Pueblos — The Petrified Forest — Aztec Ruins and Hieroglyphics 
—The Painted Desert 135 

CHAPTER XVII 

The Cliff Dwellings 
Treasure Ground of Santa Fe — Pajarito Park — Vast Com- 
munal Buildings — Ruins Surrounding Flagstaff — Pathos of 
these People 147 

CHAPTER XVIII 

Nature's Supreme Miracle 
The Grand Canyon of Arizona — The Descent — In the 
Abyss — Powell's Gigantic Achievement — The Splendor of a New 
Day _. 153 

CHAPTER XIX 

Making the Desert Bloom 
Daring Projects of Uncle Sam — Terms of the Reclama- 
tion Act — What the Roosevelt Dam is Doing for Arizona — 
The Miracle of Yakima Valley — The Wenatchee Lands 161 

CHAPTER XX 

Under the Turquoise Sky 

In the Rocky Mountain Region — Denver, the Gateway — 

The Surrounding Wonderland — Fabulous Riches — Colorado 

Springs — The Lordly Pike's Peak — Manitou and the Garden of 

the Gods — In the Cripple Creek District — Through the Royal 

Gorge — Around the Circle — A Happy Hunting Ground 166 

10 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XXI 

America's Dead Sea 

PAGE 

Lake Bonneville — Daring Founders of Salt Lake City — 
Nature's Contribution — Seeing the City — Saltair Beach — 
Rivaling Panama , 179 

CHAPTER XXII 

The Fantastic Playground of Nature 

Nature's Gigantic Exposition in Yellowstone Park — The 
Boiling River — The Norris Geyser Basia — Landmarks of the 
Rockies — In the Firehole Region — The Real Home of the 
Geyser — A Jewel in a Deep Setting — Wild Animals — The 
Crowning Glory 185 

CHAPTER XXIII 

Among the American Alps 

Glacier National Park in the Rockies — Following the 
Rocky Mountain Trail — The Going-to-the-Sun Region — By 
Skyland Trails — The Mammoth Park Hotels — ^The Mountain 
Chalet-Villages 193 

CHAPTER XXIV 

The Lure of the Northwest 

A Region of Endless Charm — Fabulous Orchards — Ro- 
mance of the Wheat Fields — The Inland Empire — Mighty 
Forests — The Great Salmon Fisheries — The Majestic River of 
the Northwest—The Rose City at the Foot of Mt. Hood— 
A Lake in the Crater of a Volcano — Tacoma and Seattle — The 
Lordly Mt. Rainier 200 

CHAPTER XXV 

The Land of the Midnight Sun 

Alaska, Strange Country of the North — Nature's Gorgeous 
Pageantry — The Old Russian Capital — Cordova and the Cop- 
per River Country — A Good Investment 209 

11 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER XXVI 
"Our Lady, Queen of the Angels" 

PAGE 

Religious Origia of the Name Los Angeles — The Sierra 
Madre — A Cosmopolitan City — A Garden City — The Longest 
Aqueduct in the World — The Mission Play — The Enchanted 
Isle — To Redlands and the Orange Groves 216 

CHAPTER XXVII 

The Yosemite Valley and the Big Trees^ 

Among Giant Walls of Rock — Yosemite Falls — The Tribu- 
tary Canyons — Trees Eight Thousand Years Old 222 

CHAPTER XXVIII 

The Guardian of the Golden Gate 

San Francisco, the Phoenix City — ^A Great Seaport — 
Beautiful Berkeley — Cosmopolitan Gay ety 226 

CHAPTER XXIX 

Within the Portals of Inspiration 

Gorgeous Setting of the Panama-Pacific Exposition — The 
General Plan — Wonderful Courts — Court of Abundance — 
Court of the Four Seasons — The Exhibit Palaces — Sculpture — 
An Exposition of Color — "The Zone" — Toyland Grown Up — ■ 
The Aeroscope — Exposition Grounds Railway — Contests and 
Athletics 229 

CHAPTER XXX 

A Magic City in the Land of Heart's Desire 

Romantic Staging of a Modem Industrial Drama — Por- 
tola and His Men — Fray Serra's Miracle — The Spanish Tradi- 
tions — ^A New City of Old Spain — The Old and New in Exposi- 
tions — The Intensive Farm — "The Painted Desert" — The 
Climate as Contributor 245 



12 




Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y. 

The Gateway to America. The famous statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. 
The grassy space in the foreground is Battery Park, so calkd because it was forti- 
fied in the leventeenth century for the protection of tht; town, and the round 
buikling is the Aquarium. Here in the early days stood a rude ."fastle'' or fort, 
kiter sujjplantf d by an opera house. Washington often walked in the old garden 
around the building, as did other great Americans. 




Phuto by Brown Bros. 

"The Great White Way." Times Square, New York, at night, with Broadway 
on the left, a ourvinji ribbon of white light. Here every night in winter thousands 
upon thousands of ix'ojjh- throng to theaters and cafes. 



CHAPTER I 
MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

NEW YORK, THE CITY OF CITIES THE MECCA OF AMERI- 

• CANS MAMMOTH SKYSCRAPERS COMMERCE ENCIR- 
CLING THE SEVEN SEAS THE GATHERING GROUND OF 

MANY PEOPLES HISTORIC PLACES THE GREAT WHITE 

WAY ^WALL STREET RIVERSIDE DRIVE A PEOPLE's 

UNIVERSITY THE AMERICAN RHINE WEST POINT 

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to think of New York without 
superlatives. It is the largest city on the globe; it is 
the greatest industrial city; it contains the loftiest 
buildings; its towers and bridges and tunnels are the 
wonder of the world. And with every chance of becom- 
ing the most sordid city, it is still a place of miracled 
enchantment, its towers resplendent, its commercialism 
transmuted into glory by the very might of the imagina- 
tion which can conceive and build its Babel not through 
fear but through audacity and a certain longing that is 
truly American to do things in big ways — bigger than 
they have ever been done before. 

"For the builders builded in blindness; 
Little they thought of the ultimate 
Uses of beauty! 

Little they kenned and nothing they recked of the raptures 
Of conscious and masterful art; 
They builded blinder than they who raised 
The naively blasphemous challenge of Babel; 
For they wrought in the sordid humor 

13 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

Of greed, and the lust for power; 

They wrought in the heat of the bitter 

Battle for gold; 

And some of them ground men's lives to mortar, 

Taking the conqueror's toll 

From the veins of the driven millions; 

Of curses and tears they builded, 

Cruelty and crime and sorrow — 

And behold! by a baffling magic 

The work of their hands transmuted 

To temples and towers that are crowned 

With a glamor transcendent 

That lifts up the heart like the smile of a god!"* 

THE MECCA OF AMERICANS 

Hither Americans from far and near delight to come, 
as the Englishman delights to journey to London or the 
Frenchman to Paris, to bathe for a time in the great 
rushing stream of human life, and return with fresh 
vigor, new ideas, larger vision. To the average American 
a trip to Manhattan is a sort of mental and spiritual 
Turkish bath: he can scarcely escape becoming a little 
less provincial, a little more alive. The artist translates 
New York in terms of beauty; the practical man, in 
terms of efficiency. New York is indeed all things to all 
men, and the New York of the artist is as different from 
the New York of the efficiency expert as the New York 
of the immigrant is from the New York of the millionaires 
who build their palaces on Fifth Avenue. Everywhere, 
however, it is spectacular, the big setting of a big drama, 
a place of endless experiment and achievement, the city 
of the skyscraper, whose elevators convey one with the 



* Don Marquis in Scribner's Magazine. 
14 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

speed of an eagle to dizzy summits from which those who 
walk the narrow street below seem like so many ants, 
following their daily toil. 

MAMMOTH SKYSCRAPERS 

For the present at least the tallest office building 
in the world will be found on the western side of City 
Hall Park, where the towering Woolworth Building lifts 
its glittering steel-and-terra-cotta structure through a 
sheer height of 785 feet above the sidewalk. Like a 
majestic cathedral it rises out of the old and ugly build- 
ings that have gathered around the water front. This is 
not only the loftiest office building, but, if we except the 
Eiffel tower, it is the tallest structure of any kind as yet 
erected by man. 

As the eye ranges up through the multitudinous 
stories to the pyramidal structure at the top, the question 
arises as to v/hat is the limit of height to which a habitable 
building can be carried. The answer is to be found in a 
certain restriction laid down by the Building Code of 
New York City, which states that on a rock foundation 
the load may reach but not exceed fifteen tons to the 
square foot. On this basis, it would be possible on a 
plot of ground 200 feet square to erect an office building 
2,000 feet in height, and to build it, moreover, so that it 
would be perfectly secure against the fiercest hurricane, 
and, because of its elasticity, even against the altogether 
improbable event of an earthquake shock. This is, 
indeed, the age of miracles. 

The Woolworth Building is taUer than it looks. To 
reach its lowest foundation, we must go down in one 
place a depth of 120 feet beneath the sidewalk — for 

15 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

that was the depth to which it was necessary to sink 
the pneumatic caisson in that particular spot before 
the solid rock of Manhattan Island was reached. This 
would make the total height from lowest foundation to 
summit 905 feet. The building contains 23,000 tons of 
structural steel, 17,000,000 common brick, 7,500 tons of 
terra cotta, 1,800,000 square feet of floor tiles, 1,800,000 
square feet of partition tiles, and 2,500 square feet of cut 
stone. From these figures we gain some idea of what 
the erection of this $12,000,000 structure meant. 

We have said that the Woolworth Building was the 
loftiest in the world; it was once also the largest, but 
such statements do not long remain true in a city that 
moves as New York moves, and the great Equitable 
Building soon eclipsed the Woolworth in size if not in 
height. The Singer Building, which once stood out the 
glorious sentinel of lower New York, is now only one of 
many that make the skyline so daringly picturesque. 

COMMERCE ENCIRCLING THE SEVEN SEAS 

It was to New York's splendid position as a seaport 
that the early growth of the city w^as due, and it is that 
same position which makes it the peer of American 
cities today. New York's share of the total foreign 
commerce of the United States was 46 per cent in 1914, 
the domestic exports amounting to no less than $845,000,- 
000. The shrewd Dutch settlers of the little old town 
of New Amsterdam could never have imagined such 
wealth. 

Ships of a hundred different lines ply to and from the 
great piers that line the rivers, carrying their cargoes 
and millions of passengers to and from ports all over the 
16 "* 




Photo by lirown Br 



Wall Street, Known Around the World. This narrow canyon street in 
the lower part of the borough of Manhattan is the fintuicial center of the United 
States. Trinity Church (founded in 1696 and rebuilt in 1839) with its quaint 
old churchyard lies at the head of the street on Broadway, its spire insignificant 
amid the giant skyscrapers that surround it. 




Photo by Brown Bros. 

Grant's Tomb on the Hudson. It was Grant's own wish that his body 
should rest in New York, where his last years were spent, and the memorial on 
Riverside Drive is a fitting burial place. His own immortal phrase, "Let us 
have peace," is carved above the portico. 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

globe, for New York is indeed a great cosmopolis, to 
which products and peoples inevitably are directed. 

THE GATHERING GROUND OF MANY PEOPLES 

Here all countries are represented, and the East Side 
especially is a vast melting pot where Italians, Lithua- 
nians, Russians, Bulgarians, Rumanians, Greeks, Poles 
and Hungarians — Americans-in-the-making — congregate. 
Many-storied tenements stand in unabashed disorder, 
clothes and bedding ornamenting the front fire-escapes, 
and pushcarts Hning the streets where children throng to 
play and women in kerchiefs and shawls chatter and buy. 
Chinatown, also, must not be forgotten, with its fasci- 
nating shops and inhabitants of a nation which possessed 
both culture and religion many thousand years before 
America was born. In other quarters are found other 
Orientals — ^Arabs, Armenians, Turks and Syrians — ^weav- 
ing their gorgeous fabrics and selling them to him who 
wiU buy. Japanese stores there are also, German gardens, 
and a quaint French quarter — aU within this most 
American of American cities. It is said that there are 
in New York City more Germans than in any German 
city and more Irish than in Dublin. 

HISTORIC PLACES 

Places of historic interest there are, too — Battery Park, 
once the famous Castle Garden; Fraunces' Tavern, 
Broad and Pearl streets, where Washington took leave 
of his officers in 1783; Jumel Mansion, 160th Street and 
Amsterdam Avenue, the headquarters of Washington 
and also of Sir Henry Clinton; St. Paul's Chapel, 
Broadway and Vesey Street, built in 1766 and still 

2 17 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 



preserved with Washington's and Governor Clinton's 
pews, monuments and relics intact — a constant reminder 
amid all the bustle of the downtown district of the early 
days, now long since gone by. Near by is also Trinity 
Church (established in 1697), just at the head of Wall 
Street, a curious anomaly^ though united to that money 
center by its wealthy church society, the wealthiest in 
America, and by the names of some of the distinguished 
dead whose remains lie in the sleepy old churchyard of 
worn gravestones and naive inscriptions; and in Wall 
Street at the corner of Nassau is the United States Sub- 
Treasury, on the site of Federal Hall in which assembled 
the first American Congress and where Washington took 
the first oath of office. A statue of the great chief stands 
in front of the building. 

WALL STREET 

Here in Wall Street is the financial center not only of 
New York but of the whole nation. The New York 
Stock Exchange at Broad Street is the world's greatest 
market of stocks, bonds and securities; and in the Sub- 
Treasury deposits sometimes reach a total of $225,000,000. 
At the Produce Exchange in Whitehall Street three 
thousand members transact annually business amounting 
to over a billion dollars. 

THE GREAT WHITE WAY 

Wall Street is plainly ''down town." The retail 
business of the city has moved steadily north, following 
Broadway, until the center of the shopping district is 
now, roughly, Thirty-fourth Street. The theaters are 
pretty well scattered throughout the city, but tend to 
18 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

concentrate at Forty-second Street and Broadway and 
it is in this neighborhood perhaps that the ''Great White 
Way" is most resplendent. To walk Broadway after 
the theaters have disgorged on Saturday evening is to 
enter a romantic land where night is not and gayety is 
unceasing. Electric signs dazzle on every hand and 
men and women good-naturedly jostle each other in the 
stream that washes the sidewalks. Overhead, in a blaze 
of light, a huge eagle with a fluttering ribbon caught in 
his beak flaps his nightly journey toward a five-foot bottle 
of beer, a kitten tangles and untangles herself in a spool 
of well-known silk, and a huge name of cigarette fame 
lends its luster to the dazzHng highway. From a tall 
building, Broadway seems a long curving ribbon of white 
light. 

RIVERSIDE DRIVE 

If Broadway is the people's street, Fifth Avenue is the 
parade ground of the wealthy. Here are the fashionable 
shops and here in the afternoon smartly dressed men and 
women love to saunter as well as shop. Up and down the 
sidewalks they surge while the street is black with automo- 
biles and omnibuses wriggling in and out between one 
another and dodging the crowds. Most New Yorkers 
enjoy these busses and few visitors miss riding in them, 
viewing from a comfortable seat on the open top the 
great stores of lower Fifth Avenue and the homes of the 
Astors and other millionaires farther up. From Fortieth 
to Forty-second Street, one passes on the left the Public 
Library, a splendid classic building containing over a 
million volumes, and on the right at Fifty-second Street 
St. Patrick's Cathedral, the largest and most beautiful 

19 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

Gothic church in America. At Fifty-ninth Street one 
strikes Central Park, 879 acres of diversified woodland, 
meadow, lawns and ponds, containing the MetropoHtan 
Museum of Art, the finest of its kind in America, with 
many works of modern artists as well as of the old 
masters. 

RIVEKSIDE DRIVE"^ 

Some of the omnibuses follow Riverside Drive all the 
way to Grant's Tomb at 123d Street, and a beautiful 
ride it is, with stately houses fronting on the Hudson 
and a fitting monument to one of the nation's great men 
at the end. Stately and beautiful the mausoleum stands 
upon a grassy terrace where its white marble can be seen 
far up and down the river. Over the entrance are in- 
scribed the immortal words of the beloved soldier; 
''Let us have peace." 

A people's university 

Not far away, on Morningside Heights, is the campus 
of Columbia, once the University of the City of New 
York in name and still that in fact, offering the students 
of the city courses such as may be found in no other 
imiversity this side the sea. Perhaps the most interesting 
of the buildings here is the Library, built in 1900. Around 
a portion of this extends an open colonnade, known as the 
HaU of Fame. Here the names of great Americans 
(chosen at intervals by the baUot of a hundred prominent 
persons) are inscribed on memorial tablets. 

Columbia offers many different courses, including 
Medicine, Law, Mines and Engineering. The School of 
Journalism, endowed by Joseph Pulitzer, that strange 
20 




Photo by Brown B 

Columbia University on Morningside Heights. 



A bird's-eye view of the 
campus showing the Universitj' Library with its dome and pillars, one of the most 
beautiful buildings in America. Situated in New York City, Columbia has become 
the Mecca of students from all parts of the country. 




Copyri(jht by Underwood and Underwood, N. 

In the Land of Hendrick Hudson. At the upper end of the parade ground of 
the United States Mihtary Academy at West Point, New York, looking north up 
the Hudson River toward Newburg. Tliis stream has played a large part in 
American history, offering in colonial times through Lake Champlain and the 
Richelieu River a comparatively easy route to Canada. 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

and interesting dean of American newspapers, was 
opened here in 1912. Those who cannot attend the 
regular courses are offered opportunities in the Summer 
School and in the system of extension teaching, w^hereby 
courses of lectures are given throughout the city. 

THE AMERICAN RHINE 

But the caU of the water is in our blood, for we have 
caught fascinating gUmpses of the upper Hudson River 
and long to follow its course. To be sure it does not 
possess the ruined castles and quaint old towns that lend 
charm to the Rhine, but the scenery is at all times lovely 
and sometimes impressively grand. ''The Danube has 
in part ghmpses of such grandeur," said George William 
Curtis, ''the Elbe sometimes has such delicatety penciled 
effects, but no European river is so lordly in its bearing, 
none flows in such state to the sea." And if the Rhine 
has its legendary w^ealth, the Hudson has its Sleepy 
Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, immortalized by Washington 
Irving whose "Sunny side" home is still one of the lovely 
landmarks of this fascinating stream, and is associated 
too with the undying romances of James Fenimore 
Cooper. 

In ascending the Hudson from New York, there are 
passed on either hand the heights which were covered 
in early Revolutionary days with the defenses of New 
York, Fort Washington and Fort Lee, but beyond the 
names no trace of either fort remains. The British 
captured both in the latter part of 1776, and afterwards 
held them. Fort Lee is now a favorite picnic ground. 
Above it rises the great wall of the Pahsades, the won- 
derful formation built up of columned trap rock that 

21 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

extends along the western river bank for twenty miles 
up to Piermont, this rocky buttress making the northern 
limit of New Jersey on the Hudson River. To the 
eastward, the opposite shore of the Hudson is a succes- 
sion of villas and fashionable summer resorts, whither 
the New York people come out, seeking rest. 

WEST POINT 

The most famous locality in the Highlands is West 
Point. ''In this beautiful place," wrote Charles Dickens, 
"the fairest among the fair and lovely Highlands of the 
North River; shut in by deep green heights and ruined 
forts, and looking down upon the distant town of New- 
burg, along a glittering path of sunlit water, with here and 
there a skiff, whose white sail often bends on some new 
tack as sudden flaws of wind come down upon her from 
the gullies in the hills, hemmed in besides, all around, with 
memories of Washington and events of the Revolutionary 
War, is the military school of America." Opposite 
Anthony's Nose, Montgomerj^ Creek flows in, its mouth 
broadened into a little bay. Upon the high rocks at the 
entrance, on either side, stood the great defenders of the 
lower Highlands during the early Revolution, Forts 
Clinton and Montgomery, considered impregnable then, 
and to bar the river passage a ponderous iron chain on 
timber floats was stretched across the channel to 
Anthony's Nose. 

The Hudson River, some distance above, bends 
sharply around the little lighthouse on the end of West 
Point, its extremity being a moderately sloping rock 
covered with cedars, the reef going deep down into the 
water, while on its highest part is a monument to General 
22 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

Kosciusko, who had much to do with constructing the 
original mihtary works. The flat and elevated surface, 
some distance inland, plainly visible both from up and 
down the river, is the Parade Groimd, the Academic 
buildings being constructed around it, while behind them 
on higher ground is the dome-crowned library. The 
surface of West Point is not so high as the surrounding 
mountains, but its advanced position completely com- 
mands the river approach both ways, and hence its 
military importance. Along the water's edge at the 
Point the rocks are worn smooth, it is said, by so many 
cadets sitting there in the sunamer time. Just above is 
the cove, where they swim and practice, at pontoon- 
bridge building, and back of this cover is the artillery 
groimd, the guns being fired at the huge side of Old 
Cro' Nest Mountain to the northward. 

THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS 

Still farther north one comes into the fascinating 
region where the Catskill Mountains rise in all their 
glory, spreading across the western horizon at a distance 
of eight to ten miles from the Hudson River. They 
stretch for about fifteen miles, and the range covers some 
five hundred square miles. The most prominent peaks 
in the view are Round Top and the High Peak, rising 
thirty-four hundred and thirty-six hundred feet. The 
Indians knew these grand peaks as the Onti Ora, or 
'^Mountains of the Sky," thus named because in some 
conditions of the atmosphere they appear like a heavy 
cumulus cloud hanging above the horizon. The weird 
Indian tradition was that among these mountains w^as 
held the treasury of storms and sunshine for the Hudson, 

23 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

presided over by the spirit of an old Indian squaw who 
dwelt within the range. 

It was among these wonderful mountains that Wash- 
ington Irving was thus enabled to discover Rip Van 
Winkle. Down on the mountain side, upon the margin 
of a deep dark glen leading up from Catskill ViUage, 
stands Rip Van Winkle's ancient little cabin. It is 
within the vast amphitheater where Hendrick Hudson's 
ghostly crew held their revels and beguiled him to drink 
from the flagon which put him into his sleep of twenty 
years. 

Among these mountains one would like to linger long 
enough at least to hear the Dutch ship's company from 
the "Half Moon" playing their game of nine-pins, but 
sightseeing days are short when there's the whole of 
America to be visited, and one must return to the vast city 
where Irving in his busy years found a home, and where 
Cooper, too, wrote many of his Leatherstocking tales. 

The New York of their day has long since passed away, 
as the present city whose towers spell arrogance will 
perhaps some day also pass. 

"And we who builded this citadel in fabric of brick and brass 
Shall build again for the city's Soul and the things that will not pass. 
In Babel the tongues were all confused; but that ancient curse is done. 
And here have the scattered tribes of earth fore-gathered again as 

one. 
Out of all lands we lift our hands to build with steam and fire; 
And towering vast we shall raise at last the City of Man's Desire."* 

For the present New York satisfies many of our 
twentieth-century desires, and if the New York of Fifth 

* C. L. Edson in the Evening Mail, 
24 



MODERN TOWERS OF BABEL 

Avenue and the towering skyscrapers is also the New 
York of pohce graft and Tammany and righteous indus- 
trial unrest, it is still a city not without ideals, a city that 
in many ways has demonstrated the value both of 
efficiency and of imagination. 



25 



CHAPTER 11 
IDEAS AND IDEALS 

BOSTON, THE ANCIENT HUB OUR DECOROUS NEW 

ENGLAND SISTER FUNDAMENTAL IDEALS SACRED 

AMERICAN RELICS THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY BOSTON 

COMMON THE PUBLIC LIBRARY ^ART AND MUSIC — 

"the MOTHER CHURCH " BRAVE OLD HARVARD 

BOSTON HARBOR. 

NEW ENGLAND is a place of historic memories and it 
is around Boston, ''the hub of the universe," that they 
center. Prior to the Revolution, indeed, Boston was 
the largest and most important American city, reaching 
a population of 25,000 inhabitants — no small number as 
cities went at that time. As early as 1663 an English 
visitor, describing the place, wrote that ''the buildings 
are handsome, joining one to the other, as in London, 
with many large streets, most of them paved with pebble- 
stones. In the high street toward the Common there 
are fine houses, some of stone"; and indeed, as one his- 
torian truly says, "Philadelphia was a forest and New 
York was an insignificant village long after its rival, 
Boston, had become a great commercial town." 

OUR DECOROUS NEW ENGLAND SISTER 

A very conservative and proper city is this New 
England sister, who perhaps exactly because of her age, 
which must amount now to the years of old-maidenhood, 
looks askance at the vulgarity and frivolous amuse- 



IDEAS AND IDEALS 



ments of her younger sisters. Boston pays obeisance to 
tradition, is ''quiet and refined" in her tastes, and 
observes the Sabbath day as duly as a big city can. 
Her people are overwhelmingly polite and unendingly 
intellectual, and those of the charmed inner circle whose 
forebears lived in Boston in her early days, are immu- 
tably exclusive. Yet there is a delightful flavor about 
this old city, most English of American cities, and there 
is no better place to spend a winter holiday, feasting 
the soul upon Boston's wealth of concerts, plays, and 
lectures. If one have entree to the old red-brick houses 
of other times, so much the better, for there one gets 
the real Boston, the culture that lends grace as well as 
interest to its inmates, and there the lover of antiques 
feasts his soul upon massive mahogany and rare old 
china. 

FUNDAMENTAL IDEALS 

After all, Boston is a place of spiritual as well as 
intellectual culture, with that blessed quality of rever- 
ence — reverence for the things of the spirit as well as 
reverence for the past — ^which is so beautiful when it is 
genuine, and so sadly lacking in our American make-up. 
Boston is still colored by the transcendentalism that 
found its supreme utterance in Emerson, and even a 
commercial age must in a measure respect the city which 
considers ''women and children first," forbids skyscrapers 
that shut out the blessed light of day, and holds its ancient 
graveyards as holy ground. The Westerner arrives 
prepared to scoff at petticoated Boston, top-heavy with 
intellect, and stays to praise, perhaps even bowing his 
head reverently with the rest. 

27 



IDEAS AND IDEALS 



SACRED AAIERICAN RELICS 

At least he will find much in Boston that will move 
him to homage — ^brave rehcs of the strenuous days when 
America in pain and tumult was being born. The fa- 
mous Boston State House, a noble building fronting on 
Beacon Street at the summit of the hill, stands upon 
ground which in the eighteenth century was John Han- 
cock's cow pasture. Within is the Memorial Hall 
containing the battle-flags of Massachusetts and other 
historical relics. Portraits, busts and statues of the 
great men of Massachusetts adorn the interior rooms. 
From the tower is the finest view of Boston and the 
surrounding lands and waters. 

In the Representatives' Chamber hangs, high on the 
wall, one of the precious relics of the Old Bay State, a 
carved codfish, typifying a great industry, and recalling 
to the humorous-minded that ancient mooted question: 
"Does the codfish salt the ocean or the ocean salt the 
codfish?" This carved fish was hung m the old State 
House (still standing) on Washington Street in 1785, 
at the suggestion of Representative Rowe. A still more 
priceless rehc is held by the State Library — the ''Log of 
the Mayflower," written by Governor William Bradford. 

Near the northern edge of the Common, at the corner 
of Park and Tremont Streets, is the old ''Brimstone 
Corner," where stands the citadel of orthodoxy, the 
Puritan meeting-house. Park Street Church. Adjoining 
is an ancient graveyard, the "Old Granary Burying 
Ground," where He the remains of some of the most 
famous men of Boston, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, 
Paul Revere, James Otis, Peter Faneuil, many of the 
colonial governors, and also the parents of Benjamin 
28 




Where the "Boston Tea Party" was Planned. The Old South Church of 
Boston has many associations. It was the meeting place of the people alter the 
"Boston Massacre" of 1770, when they demanded the removal of the British 
troops and here too were held the meetings that led up to the Boston iea 
Partv" of 1773. 



IDEAS AND IDEALS 



Franklin. On Tremont Street was established the first 
Episcopal Church in Boston, the King's Chapel, the 
present building replacing the original one in 1754. 
Adjacent is the oldest burying-place of the colony, 
where lie the remains of Governor John Winthrop and 
his sons, with other early settlers. 

Various intricate streets and passages lead eastward 
from Tremont Street into Washington Street, the main 
thoroughfare of the city, having prominent theaters, 
newspaper offices, many of the largest stores and great 
ofifice buildings. Benjamin Franklin was born in a 
little old dwelling near Washington Street, where now 
stands a newspaper office. Alongside is the Old South 
Church, the most famous church of Boston, but now a 
historical relic and museum of Revolutionary antiquities, 
the congregation having built themselves a magnificent 
temple, the ''New Old South Church," upon Boylston 
Street, in the fashionable quarter of the Back Bay, 
This ancient church is a curious edifice of colonial style, 
built in 1729, when it replaced an earlier building. It 
has a taU spire and a clock, to which it is said more eyes 
are upturned than to any other dial in New England. 
The interior is square, with double galleries on the ends, 
and its original condition has been entirely restored. 
It was the colonial shrine of Boston, wherein were held 
the spirited meetings of the exciting days that hatched 
the Revolution. Franklin was baptized in the original 
church, and here Whitefield preached. 

THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY 

Dock Square is not far away, and Change AWej and 
other crooked passages lead over to the Boston "Cradle 

29 



IDEAS AND IDEALS 



of Liberty," Faneuil Hall. Old Peter Faneuil, a 
Huguenot merchant, built it for a market and presented 
it to the city in 1742, but it was unfortunately burned, 
being rebuilt in 176L Within it were held the early 
town-meetings, and it is still the great place for popular 
assemblages. It was enlarged to its present size in 1805. 
This famous hall is a plain rectangular building, seventy- 
six feet square inside, the lower floor a market, and the 
upper portion an assembly room. It is located,, with 
surmounting cupola, in an open square, and when any- 
thing excites the public it is crowded with audiences, 
standing, since there are no seats. Across the end is a 
raised platform for the orators, behind which, on the 
wall, is Healy's large painting, representing the United 
States Senate listening to a speech by Daniel Webster. 
There are numerous historical portraits on the walls. 
The ''Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company," 
dating from 1638, occupy the floor above the Hall, while 
in front of it and extending towards the harbor is the 
Quincy Market. 

BOSTON COMMON 

The center aroimd which Boston clusters is the weU- 
known Boston Common, set apart in 1634, and always 
jealously reserved for pubhc uses, the surface rising upon 
its northern verge towards Beacon Hill. No matter by 
what route approached, the city has the appearance of 
a broad cone with a wide-spreading base, ascending 
gradually to the bulb-Uke apex of the gilded State House 
dome. 

The Common is rich in noble old trees, and covers 
nearly fifty acres, while to the westward is an additional 
30 



CnAiiLKS JdVJiJt 




Boston of the Lontg-Ago. An old map of the city out of which the modern 
Boston has grown. The Common with its Powder House, and Beacon Hill are 
conspicuous. (31) 



IDEAS AND IDEALS 



level park of half the size, known as the Public Garden, 
separated by a wide street accommodating the cross- 
town traffic. This noted Boston Common was the 
ancient Puritan pasture-ground, and it is rich in tradi- 
tions. In the colonial wars, the captured hostile Indians 
were put to death here, their grinning heads impaled on 
stakes for a pubhc warning. Murderers were gibbeted, 
witches burned and duels fought here. The impassioned 
George Whitefield, in the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, preached here to a congregation of twenty thou- 
sand. An EngUsh traveler in the late seventeenth 
century described the place as "a small but pleasant 
Common where the gallants a little before sunset walk 
with their marmalet-madams till the beU at nine o'clock 
rings them home." Beacon Street is the northern border 
and Boylston Street the southern, and there are rows 
of stately elms upon the walks along these streets and 
the pathways leading across the Common in various 
directions. 

THE LARGER CITY 

Boston in alarming fashion outgrew its geographical 
limits, so in order to get available room and facilitate 
business the city has gathered the terminals of aU the 
railways into two enormous stations on the northern and 
southern sides of the town, and for nearly a haK century 
it has been fiUing in the fens and lowlands to the west- 
ward, so that now this reclaimed West End is the fashion- 
able section, containing the finest churches, hotels, and 
residences. Through this splendid district extends for 
over a mile the grand Commonwealth Avenue, two hun- 
dred and forty feet wide, its center being a tree- 
32 




Pliulo by Bruwn Bros. 

The Cradle of Liberty. The upper story of this old market-house at the 
head of State Street in Boston was during revolutionary times frequently used 
for meetings of Patriots and hence the place came to be known as "The Cradle 
of Liberty." The building was erected by Peter Faneuil, a merchant, in 1761, 
was rebuilt after a fire in 1763, and enlarged in 1806. 



IDEAS AND IDEALS 



embowered park adorned by statues of Alexander 
Hamilton, John Glover, William Lloyd Garrison, and 
Leif Ericson, and having on either side a magnificent 
boulevard. The bordering residences are fronted by 
fascinating gardens, and at regular intervals fine streets 
cross at right angles, their names arranged alphabetically, 
in proceeding westward, with the well-known English 
titles, Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, 
Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, Hereford, etc. Parallel 
to the Avenue are Boylston, Marlborough, Newbury and 
Beacon Streets. On Boylston Street are the stately 
buildings of the Museum of Natural History, and the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Beyond, at 
the intersection of Dartmouth Street, is Copley Square, 
displaying around it the finest architectural group in the 
city, five magnificent buildings, three of them churches, 
including the famous Trinity Church in which Phillips 
Brooks preached. 

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 

The Pubhc Library, on the southern side, is the pride 
of all Boston, a splendid structure of pinkish-gray stone 
in Italian Renaissance style, suggesting a Florentine 
palace, erected at a cost of nearly two and a half millions. 
It has a fascinating inner cloistered court, bronze doors 
by Daniel Chester French, a staircase in Siena marble, 
panels by Puvis de Chavannes illustrating the history 
of science and literature, and other notable decorative 
paintings by John S. Sargent on the history of religion 
and by Edwin A. Abbey on the quest of the Holy 
Grail. One could spend many days in this one 
building alone, feasting one's eyes on the beauty that 

3 33 



IDEAS AND IDEALS 



has been gathered together to grace this storehouse of 
learning. 

AET AND MUSIC 

Boston has a splendid art life with many opportunities 
for students. The Museum of Fine Arts was founded in 
1870 and the present beautiful building in the famous 
Back Bay Fens, the reclaimed swamps laid out by F. L. 
Olmstead, was erected in 1908. As a musical center 
the city rivals New York, and the Symphony Orchestra, 
organized in 1881, has a reputation beyond any other 
in the United States. It has the honor, too, of being 
the first great orchestra in America, and of having done 
incalculably much for the musical life of the country. 

As a literary center Boston held undisputed first 
place until the later decades of the nineteenth century 
when New York, with its many publishing houses and 
teeming life, took precedence. It still retains, however, 
a considerable colony of writers, and at least two of its 
periodicals, the North American Review and the Atlantic 
Monthly, still do much to shape the thought of a host of 
readers. 

"the mother church" 

Of the many thought movements that have arisen in 
Boston, Christian Science is one, and few visitors to the 
city fail to admire the great memorial church established 
in 1894 and enlarged and reconstructed in 1906. It is 
indeed an impressive structure, and a noble monument 
to the memory of a woman who, we must admit, whether 
we accept Christian Science or not, did much to popular- 
ize a great and fundamental truth. The modem reaction 
34 



IDEAS AND IDEALS 



in medical practice against drugs and the increased 
study and use of principles of psychotherapy may be 
traced largely to the influence of Mary Baker Eddy. 

BEAVE OLD HARVAKD 

And no visitor should fail to visit Harvard, "ancient 
of days," in dear old Cambridge town, where the elms of 
long ago still glorify barren brick buildings, and where 
associations with the most glorious period of American 
letters make the whole sleepy town sacred. Geograph- 
ically Cambridge is practically a part of Boston and 
one may speed thither via the subway — Boston's famous 
subway in. which for a five-cent fare one may travel 
by various labyrinthine ways between any two points 
in an area of a hundred square miles. In 1638 Cam- 
bridge was named in honor of the English university 
where many of the leading men of the colony had 
received their education • and when in the same year 
John Harvard died, bequeathing his books and half his 
estate to the wilderness seminary that had just been 
opened, his name was given to the college. The institu- 
tion has played an important part in American history 
and many great names are on the list of alumni — Cotton 
Mather, the Adamses, William EUery Channing, James 
Freeman Clarke, Theodore Parker, Thoreau, Emerson, 
Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, Parkman, Charles Sumner, 
etc. Longfellow's long and distinguished professorship 
at Harvard associated him with it rather than with 
Bowdoin, and here both LoweU and Holmes held pro- 
fessorships for many years. 

Cambridge has other interests besides Harvard, too, 
for it was the site of the camp of the first American 

35 



IDEAS AND IDEALS 



army at the outbreak of the Revolution, and from it 
went the detachment which intrenched on Bunker Hill. 
Here is the old Vassall or Craigie House where Washing- 
ton lived and which was later the home of Longfellow; 
and in ^'Elmwood/' built in 1767, James Russell Lowell 
was born, lived and died. In Mt. Auburn Cemetery 
lie the remains of many men and women honored 
throughout the land. 

BOSTON HARBOR 

There is a picturesqueness about Boston Harbor, and 
viewed from that ancient busy place the city rises grad- 
ually ridge above ridge, until the center culminates in 
Beacon Hill, surmounted by the bright gilded dome and 
lantern-top of the State House. From all sides the land, 
with its varied surfaces of hill and vale, slopes down 
towards the water courses, leading into the deep indenta- 
tion of the harbor. 

In these w^aters there are at least fifty large and small 
islands, and most of these, which were bare in Win- 
throp's day, are now crowned with forts, lighthouses, 
almshouses, hospitals and other civic institutions. The 
splendid guiding beacon for the harbor entrance stands 
upon Little Brewster or Lighthouse Island, at the north- 
ern edge of Nantasket Roads. This is Boston Light, 
elevated about one hundred feet, a revolving light visible 
sixteen miles out. George's Island, near the entrance 
and commanding the approach from the sea, has upon 
it the chief defensive work of the harbor, Fort Warren, 
about two miles west of Boston Light. Farther in, and 
near the city, off South Boston, is Castle Island, with 
Fort Independence, the successor of the earliest Boston 
36 




a o -/J ^ 



IDEAS AND IDEALS 



fort, the '^ Castle/' built by Winthrop in 1634. Opposite 
and about one mile northward is Governor's Island, con- 
taining Fort Winthrop. This island was originally the 
'^Governor's garden," and Winthrop paid a yearly rent 
of two bushels of apples for it. It is a long cry from that 
day to this, but Boston Harbor is still a place of storied 
interest, with the fascination of many ships that sail the 
far seas, and as one ghdes out of the harbor at sundown it 
is with a feeling of gratitude to this oldest of cities that 
has given so much that is precious to America. 



37 



CHAPTER III 
THE BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 

PHILADELPHIA, CITY OF ORIGINS REMNANTS OF 

COLONIAL DAYS THE CITY OF HOMES THE QUAKER 

CITY A PARK OF THREE THOUSAND ACRES LOCOMO- 
TIVES TO THE WHOLE WORLD A PIONEER SHIPYARD 

A PLACE OF VAST INDUSTRY. 

TO WANDER thi-ough the older sections of Philadel- 
phia, among its comfortable red-brick houses with white 
steps and quaint colonial doorways is to live again for 
a fleeting moment the days of William Penn and George 
Washington and Benjamin Franklin and all the other 
great Americans who have helped to make the city 
famous. To be sure many of the most fascinating of 
these old houses have gone down before the demands 
of a vastly busy commercial center, and many more 
have become the unlovely homes of under-fed and over- 
worked immigrants; yet even the latter retain some of 
their other-century charm, and much of the newer archi- 
tecture (that surrounding Independence Square, for 
instance, including the colossal Curtis Building of Ladies' 
Home Journal and Saturday Evening Post fame) carries 
out with beautiful conformity the ideals of a day that 
is long past. The Quaker City is indeed a place of 
inexhaustible surprise and perpetual interest. It is the 
city of origins, owing its birth as well as its early 
celebrity to the concurrent circumstances which helped 
to make the nation. Here is the actual birthplace of the 
38 •• 



BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 

United States, for here the Declaration of Independence 
was drafted and promulgated; here the Constitution of 
the United States was framed and finally ratified; here 
was the first seat of the government of the great Com- 
monwealth of States; here ''Old Glory" — the Stars and 
Stripes — the flag of the nation, was first made; and here 
may be seen the old ''Liberty Bell" whose bronze tongue 
first proclaimed "liberty throughout all the land." 

REMNANTS OF COLONIAL DAYS 

Upon the south side of Chestnut Street, running south 
to Walnut and occupying the block between Fifth and 
Sixth Streets, is Independence Square, tastefully laid out 
in flower-beds and lawns with wide and well-shaded 
walks. Upon the northern side of the square, and 
fronting Chestnut Street, is the most hallowed building 
of American patriotic memories. Independence HaU, 
a modest brick structure, yet the most interesting object 
Philadelphia contains. The Declaration of Independence 
was adopted here July 4, 1776. The old brick building, 
two stories high, plainly built, and lighted by large 
windows, was begun in 1732. It was the Government 
House of Penn's Province of Pennsylvania. In the central 
corridor stands the sacred "Liberty BeU." In the 
upper story of the hall, Washington delivered his Fare- 
well Address in closing his term of office as president. 
The eastern room of the lower story is where the Revolu- 
tionary Congress met, and it is preserved as then, the 
old tables, chairs and other furniture having been gath- 
ered together, and portraits of the signers of the Declara- 
tion hang on the walls. Here are kept the famous 
"Rattlesnake flags," with the motto J 'Don't Tread on 

39 



BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 

Me," that were the earhest flags of America, preceding 
the Stars and Stripes. 

Other historic places are near by. To the west is 
Congress Hall, where the Congress of the United States 
held its sessions prior to removal to Washington. To 
the east is the old City Hall, where the United States 
Supreme Court sat in the eighteenth century. Adjoining 
is the Hall of the American Philosophical Society, founded 
by Benjamin Franklin, and an outgrowth of his Junto 
Club of 1743. It has a fine library and many interesting 
relics. Franklin, who was the leading Philadelphian of 
the Revolutionary period, came to the city from Boston 
when eighteen years old, and died in 1790. His grave 
is not far away, in the old Quaker burying-ground on 
North Fifth Street. A fine bronze statue of Franklin 
adorns the plaza in front of the post-office building on 
Chestnut Street. Farther down Chestnut Street is the 
Hall of the Carpenters' Company, standing back from 
the street, where the first Colonial Congress met in 1774, 
paving the way for the Revolution. An inscription 
appropriately reads that ''Within these walls, Henry, 
Hancock and Adams inspired the delegates of the colonies 
with nerve and sinew for the toils of war." 

THE BETSY ROSS HOUSE 

On Arch Street, near Third, is the house where 
Betsy Ross made the first American flag, with thirteen 
stars and thirteen stripes, from a design prepared by a 
Committee of Congress and General Washington in 1777. 
Originally there was a six-pointed star suggested by the 
committee, but she proposed the five-pointed star as more 
artistic, and they accepted it. 
40 



BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 

OLD CHURCHES 

The most ancient church in Philadelphia is Gloria Dei, 
the ''Old Swedes' " Church, a quaint little structure 
near the Delaware River bank in the southern part of 
the city, built in 1700. The quiet churchyard, main- 
taining still its atmosphere of peaceful beauty even in the 
heart of the slums, is a place where one delights to linger. 
The early Swedish settlers, coming up from Fort Chris- 
tiana, erected a log chapel on this site in 1677, at which 
Jacob Fabritius delivered the first sermon. After he 
died, the King of Sweden in 1697 sent over Rev. Andrew 
Rudman, under whose guidance the present structure 
was built to replace the log chapel; and it was dedicated 
the first Sunday after Trinity, 1700, by Rev. Eric Biorck, 
who had come over with Rudman. Many are the tales 
of the escapades of the early Swedes in the day of the log 
chapel. 

On Second Street is the venerable Christ Church, with 
its taU spire, built in 1727, the most revered Episcopal 
Church in the city, and the one at which General Wash- 
ington and aU the government officials in the Revolu- 
tionary days worshiped. 

THE CITY OF HOMES 

The enormous growth of the city geographically has 
come mainly from the adoption of the general principle 
that every family shoidd live in its o^ti house, supple- 
mented by liberal extensions of electrical street railways 
in all directions. Hence, Philadelphia is popularly known 
as the ''City of Homes" and it is only within recent years 
that apartments and flats have attained any popularity. 
As the city expanded over the level land, four-, six-, 

41 



BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 

eight- and ten-room dwellings have been built by the 
mile, and set up in row after row. Two-story and three- 
story houses of brick, make up the greater part of the 
town, and each house is generally its owner's castle, 
the owner in most cases being a successful toiler, who has 
saved his house gradually out of his hard earnings, al- 
most literally brick by brick. There is almost unlimited 
space in the suburbs yet capable of similar absorption, 
and the process which has given Philadelphia this exten- 
sive surface goes on indefinitely. The tradition that one 
must live ^' south of Market Street" applies, of course, 
only to the inner social circle, which is perhaps even more 
exclusive than the same inner circle of Boston. Natu- 
rally there are many thousands of people, some of them 
exceedingly estimable, living north of Market Street. 

Market Street, be it said in passing, is the great business 
thoroughfare, while Chestnut Street, just one block south, 
is the place of shops plus atmosphere. Roughly speaking. 
Market Street is comparable to Broadway, and Chestnut 
Street to Fifth Avenue, though so many exclusive 
shops are opening on Walnut Street, another block 
farther south, that it begins to look as if that thoroughfare 
might eventually become the Fifth Avenue of Phila- 
delphia. 

THE QUAKER CITY 

The name of ''Quaker City" still chngs to Philadelphia 
and something of the influence of the "plain" people who 
formed so large a proportion of the early inhabitants may 
be seen, perhaps, in the quieter tastes of the people, so 
much quieter than those of New Yorkers, in the "closed" 
Sundays, and in the more leisurely way in which the 
42 



BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 

general business of life is followed. William Penn, who 
gave the city its name of Philadelphia (City of Brotherly 
Love), is still honored as the father of the locality and 
a colossal statue of the great founder surmounts the 
tower of City Hall. 

The shape of the city is much like an hour-glass, 
between the rivers, although it spreads far west of the 
Schuylkill. The Delaware River, in front of the built-up 
portion, sweeps around a grand curve from northeast to 
south, and then reversing the movement, flows around 
the Horseshoe Bend below the city, from south to west, 
to meet the Schuylkill. 

When Penn laid out his town-plan, he made two broad 
highways pointing toward the cardinal points of the 
compass and crossing at right angles in the center, where 
he located a public square of ten acres. The east and 
west street, one hundred feet wide, he placed at the 
narrowest part of the hour-glass, where the rivers 
approached within two miles of each other. This he 
called High Street, but the public persisted in calling it 
Market Street. The north and south street, laid out in 
the center of the plat, at its southern end reached the 
Delaware near the confluence with the Schuylkill. This 
street is one hmidred and thirteen feet wide, Broad Street, 
a magnificent thoroughfare stretching for miles and 
bordered with handsome buildings. Upon the Center 
Square was built a Quaker meeting-house, for the Friends, 
while yet occupying the caves on the bluff banks of the 
Delaware that were their earliest dwellings, showed 
anxiety to maintain their form of worship. This 
meeting-house has since multiplied into scores in the city 
and_]adjacent districts; for the sect, while not increasing 

43 



BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 

ill numbers, holds its own in wealth and importance, and 
has great influence in modern Philadelphia. Afterwards 
the Center Square was used for the city water-works, and 
finally it was made the site of the City Hall. 

This great building, covering four acres, is more 
impressive than beautiful, being built in a day that is 
now happily past; but a trip to the tower is well worth a 
visit, for from here one may see the great city, laid out for 
miles and miles in its unrelenting rectangles. 

A PARK OF THREE THOUSAND ACRES 

All Philadelphians are justly proud of Fairmount Park, 
one of the world's largest pleasure grounds. It includes 
the lands bordering both sides of the SchuylkiU, having 
been primarily established to protect the water-supply. 
There are nearly three thousand acres in the park, and 
its sloping hillsides and charming water views give it 
unrivaled advantages in natural scenery. At the southern 
end is the oldest water reservoir of six acres, on top of a 
curious and isolated conical hill about ninety feet high, 
which is the " Fair Mount," giving the park its name. The 
Schuylkill is dammed here to retain the water, and the 
park borders the river for several miles above, and its 
tributary, the Wissahickon, for six miles farther. 

The park road entering alongside the Fairmount hill 
passes a colossal equestrian statue of George Washington, 
and beyond a fine bronze statue of Abraham Lincohi, and 
also an equestrian statue of General Grant. The road- 
ways are laid on both sides of the river at the water's edge, 
and also over the higher grounds at the summits of 
the sloping bordering hills, thus affording an almost 
endless change of routes and views. The frequent 
44 



BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 

bridges thrown across the river, several of them carrying 
railroads, add to the charm, and an electric railway is 
constructed through the more remote portions. All 
around this spacious park the growing city has extended, 
and prosperous manufacturing suburbs spread up from 
the river, the chief being the carpet district of the Falls 
and the cotton mills of Manayunk, the latter on the 
location of an old-time Indian village, whose name 
translated means "the place of rum." In this park, west 
of the Schuylkill, was held the Centennial Exposition of 
1876, and several of the buildings remain, notably the 
Memorial Art Gallery, now a museum, and Horticultural 
HaU. William Penn's "Letitia House," his original 
residence, removed from the older part of the city, now 
stands near the entrance to the West Park. 

The Wissahickon, most picturesque of wooded drives 
along a winding stream, is barred to all "sightseeing" 
automobiles and the upper portions even to private cars, 
but the glen is well worth a visit, whether one drives 
behind horses or follows the narrow footpath. 

LOCOMOTIVES TO THE WHOLE WORLD 

For the more practical-minded visitor the industrial 
plants of Philadelphia have keen interest, especially the 
Baldwin Locomotive Works, founded in 1831 by Matthias 
W. Baldwin who completed his first locomotive, the "Old 
Ironsides," in that year. From modest beginnings, the 
business gradually increased until the works became the 
largest locomotive establishment in the world. Baldwin 
locomotives may now be found in practically all parts of 
the world where railways have been built. 

The principal plant of the works is located in the city, 

45 



BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 

occupying over seventeen acres of ground, while at Eddy- 
stone, about twelve miles from the city, on the Delaware 
River, there is a tract of over 225 acres, where large 
foundry, pattern, blacksmith and erecting shops are 
in operation. 

The rated capacity of the works is 2500 locomotives 
per annum, and when working on this basis nineteen 
thousand men are employed. Approximately 3850 tons 
of coal, 125,000 gallons of fuel oil, six thousand tons of 
iron and steel and 2500 tons of other materials are used 
in the works each week when running at full capacity. 

A PIONEER SHIPYARD 

Cramps' Shipyard, like the Baldwin Locomotive Works, 
is known around the world. In 1830 William Cramp, a 
pioneer shipbuilder of German descent, established an 
industry on the Delaware River, and his son, who showed 
a special aptitude as a naval architect, built up a great 
industry. Other shipyards have gathered on the river, 
and Philadelphia was in 1915 not only the largest ship- 
building center in the United States, but a close rival for 
world honors. 

A PLACE OF VAST INDUSTRY 

Philadelphia has always been one of the foremost 
manufacturing cities in the United States, and is surpassed 
only by New York and Chicago, both of which are much 
larger cities. The railway and commercial facilities, 
the proximity to the coal-fields, and the ample room to 
spread in all directions, added to the cheapness of 
living, have attracted to it over a million and a haK 
inhabitants. It is the seat of great textile industries 
46 »t 



BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY 

and produces more than one-fourth of all the manu- 
factured products in the state. Whole sections of the 
city are given over to mills and the dwellings of those 
who work in them, notably Kensington in the north- 
eastern part of the city, which includes Cramps' Shipyard 
on the Delaware and a number of textile mills employing 
thousands of workers. 

It is hard to believe that the little unpretentious settle- 
ment of William Penn on the Delaware has grown to 
such vast proportions, with industries that encircle the 
earth, but we like to remember the words of the peace- 
loving founder, who after his treaty with the Indians was 
concluded wrote: "Oh how sweet is the quiet of these 
parts, freed from the anxious and troublesome solicita- 
tions, harries and perplexities of woful Europe." Per- 
plexities there are, and many of them, within the modern 
city, yet something^of the spirit of the noble Quaker 
remains. 



47 



CHAPTER IV 
PLAYGROUNDS OF THE EAST 

UNDER THE BLUE SKIES OF MAINE THE FASHION- 
ABLE WORLD OF BAR HARBOR IN THE WHITE MOUN- 
TAINS NEWPORT, WHERE MILLIONAIRES CONGREGATE 

^ATLANTIC CITY, A GREAT DEMOCRATIC GATHERING 

PLACE. 

MAINE SEES many thousands of summer tourists, 
and few of those who once visit her shores or pene- 
trate into her forests fail to succumb to the magic spell 
of her blue skies and fragrant breezes. Easterners who 
know only boredom on the level, barren sands of the 
New Jersey coast are enthusiastic about the Pine Tree 
State, for here one may find either on the shore or on 
one of the outlying islands all the charm of mountain 
as well as sea — cool weather that is tonic, picturesque, 
rocky cliffs, and spicy woods where white-throated spar- 
rows, and even the hermit thrush, most timid and most 
musical of birds, sing, and charming meadowland, too, 
a gorgeous flower-embroidered tapestry in early summer. 
Not the most charming of Maine resorts, but perhaps 
the most talked of, is Mount Desert Island. Champlain, 
impressed with its craggy, desolate summits, named it 
the Isle des Monts deserts, the '^ Island of Desert Moun- 
tains." He then wrote of it, ^'The land is very high, 
intersected by passes, appearing from the sea like seven 
or eight mountains ranged near each other; the sum- 
mits of the greater part of these are bare of trees, because 








Photj by William H. Rau 

I?^ Honor of Betsy Ross. On Arch Street near the Delaware River in Phila- 
delphia is preserved as a national monument the house in which Betsy Ross in 
1777 made the first flag of the United States. 



PLAYGROUNDS OF THE EAST 

they are nothing but rocks." Green Mountain is the 
highest, rising over fifteen hundred feet, near the east- 
ern side, while Western Mountain terminates the range 
on the other side, and at the eastern verge is Newport 
Mountain, having the fashionable settlement of Bar 
Harbor at its northern base. There are several beauti- 
ful lakes high up among these peaks, the chief being 
Eagle Lake. Beech and Dog Mountains have pecu- 
liarities of outline, and a wider opening between two 
ponderous peaks shows where the sea has driven in the 
strange and deeply carved inlet of Somes' Sound, six 
miles from the southern side, almost bisecting the island. 

Hung closely upon the coast of Maine, in Frenchman 
Bay, this noted island, the ancient Indian Pemetic, is 
about fifteen miles long, of varying width, and covers a 
hundred square miles. It has many picturesque features, 
its mountains, which run in roughly parallel ridges north 
and south, separated by narrow trough-like valleys, dis- 
playing thirteen distinct eminences, the eastern summits 
being the highest, and terminating generally at or near 
the water's edge on that side in precipitous cliffs, with 
the waves dashing against their bases. Upon the south- 
eastern coast, fronting the ocean, as a fitting termina- 
tion to the grand scenery of these mountain-ranges, the 
border of the Atlantic is a galaxy of stupendous cliffs, 
the two most remarkable being of national fame — 
Schooner Head and Great Head — the full force of old 
ocean driving against their massive rocky buttresses. 
Schooner Head has a surface of white rock on its face, 
which when seen from the sea is fancied to resemble the 
sails of a small vessel, apparently m^oving in front of 
the giant cliff. Great Head, two miles southward, is 

4 49 



PLAYGROUNDS OF THE EAST 

an abrupt projecting mass of rock, the grim and bold 
escarpment having deep gashes across the base, evidently 
worn by the waves. It is the highest headland on the 
island. Castle Head is a perpendicular columned mass, 
appearing like a colossal, castellated doorway, flanked 
by square towers. 

THE FASHIONABLE WORLD OF BAR HARBOR 

Bar Harbor, an indentation of Frenchman Bay, hav- 
ing a bar uncovered at low tide, became the fashionable 
resort of Mount Desert. It has a charming outlook over 
the bay, with its fleets of gaily-bannered yachts and 
canoes, but is nothing more than a town of summer 
hotels and boarding-houses, built upon what was a tree- 
less plain, the outskirts consisting of cottages, many 
of great pretensions. Its bane, to those who have not 
artist-souls, is the fog, a frequent sojourner in the summer. 
There are days when the mist creeps over the water 
and finally blots out the landscape. But light breezes 
and warm sunshine then soon disperse it and the view 
reappears. The fog-rifts are wonderful picture-makers. 
Sometimes the mist obscures the sea and lower shores 
of the neighboring islands, leaving a narrow fringe of 
tree-tops resting against the horizon, as if suspended in 
mid-air, and often a yacht sails through the fog, looking 
like a colossal ghost, when suddenly its sails flash out 
in the sunlight like huge wings. 

IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 

From Portland, Maine, one may travel into the 
famous White Mountain region, the varied and im- 
pressive scenery of w^hich make it a favorite resort. 
50 



PLAYGROUNDS OF THE EAST 

Here in the Franconia group is the ''Old Man of the 
Mountain," about which Hawthorne has so delightfully 
written. The white man's discovery of this profile was 
made in the early nineteenth century by two road- 
makers, mending the highway through the Notch. 
Stooping to wash their hands in the lake, just at the 
right spot, they casually looked up and saw it, being 
struck instantly by the wonderful facial resemblance. 
''That is Jefferson," said one of them. Thomas Jef- 
ferson was then president of the United States, and the 
stern countenance certainly looks like some of his por- 
traits. There he is still, gazing far away, with sturdy, 
unchanging expression, as he has done for thousands of 
years. 

MOUNT WASHINGTON 

The Fabyan House, in front of Mount Washington, 
stands upon the location of the "Giant's Grave," which 
is an elongated mound of sand and gravel formed by 
the waves of an ancient lake, reacting from the adjacent 
mountain slopes, and rising about fifty feet. The tra- 
dition is that once a fierce-looking Indian stood upon 
this mound at night, waving a flaming torch and shout- 
ing "No pale-face shall take root here; this the Great 
Spirit whispered in my ear." The successive burnings 
of hotels on this site would seem to indicate this as 
prophetic, and in fact no hotel did stand there any 
length of time until the projectors of the present large 
building, after the last one was burned, as if to avoid 
fate, had the mound making the "Giant's Grave" leveled 
and obliterated. Here was built the earhest inn of the 
White Mountains in 1803 by a sawmill owner on the 

51 



PLAYGROUNDS OF THE EAST 

Ammonoosuc River, named Crawford. His grandson, 
Ethan Allen Crawford, the famous ''White Momitain 
Giant," was the noted guide who made the first path 
to ascend Mount Washington and built the first house 
on its sumimit. Now the mountain is ascended from 
this western side by an inclined-plane railway, reached 
by an ordinary railway extending from Fabyan's, five 
miles across, to the base of the mountain. The rail- 
way to the summit is about three miles long, and is 
worked by a cog-wheel locomotive acting upon a cen- 
tral cogged rail. It is an exhilarating ride up the 
slope, for, as the car is elevated, the horizon widens 
decidedly to the west and northwest, while the trees 
of the forest become smaller and smaller, and their 
character changes. The sugar-maples, yellow birches 
and mossy-trunked beeches, with an occasional aspen 
or mountain ash, are gradually left behind in the valley, 
being replaced on the higher slope by white pine and 
hemlock, white birch, and dark spruces and firs hung 
with gray moss. These gradually becoming smaller; 
soon the only trees left are a sort of dwarf fir inter- 
tangled with moss. Then, rising above the hmit of 
trees, there is only a stunted arctic vegetation, and this 
permits an unobstructed view all aroimd the western 
horizon. 

The top of Mount Washington is the highest eleva- 
tion in the United States east of the Rockies and north 
of the Carolinas. It is what may be described as an 
arctic island, elevated sixty-two hundred and ninety 
feet, in the temperate zone, and displaying both arctic 
vegetation and temperature, the flora and climate being 
like that of Greenland. An observatory gives a higher 
52 % 



PLAYGROUNDS OF THE EAST 

viewover the tops of the buildings, and the first great 
impression of it is that the view seems to be all around 
the world, Hmited only by the horizon. In every direc- 
tion are oceans of billowy peaks, the whole enormous 
circuit of almost a thousand miles, embracing New 
England, New York, Canada and the sea. The grand 
scene is at the same time gloomy. 

The sunamit is spacious, and the contour of the moun- 
tain can on all sides be plainly seen. Its slope to the 
westward, like all of the Presidential range, is steeper 
than to the eastward, down which a wagon-road zig- 
zags into the Glen. Upon the eastern side, two long 
spurs seem to brace the mountain, though profound 
ravines are there cut into it. The southern slope of the 
summit pitches off suddenly, while to the north there 
is a more gradual descent, both the railway and wagon- 
road approaching that way. The original Tip-Top 
House, the first inn erected, is preserved as a curiosity, 
a low and damp structure built of the rough stones 
gathered on the mountain. The newer hotel is of wood, 
with a steep roof, and is chained down to the rocks to 
prevent the gales from blowing it over. There is a 
weather-signal station at the summit, one of the most 
important posts in the country. 

NEWPORT, WHERE MILLIONAIRES CONGREGATE 

Still more far-famed than Bar Harbor as a resort of 
the fasnionable world is Newport in Rhode Island. 
Unlike most American watering-places, Newport is not 
an aggregation of hotels and lodging-houses, but is pre- 
eminently a gathering of the costliest and most elaborate 
suburban homes this country can show. Built upon 

53 



PLAYGROUNDS OF THE EAST 

the extensive space surrounding the older town, and 
between it and the ocean, south and east, modern New- 
port is a galaxy of large and expensive country-houses, 
each in an inclosure of lawns, flower-gardens and foliage, 
highly ornamental and exceedingly well kept. Many 
of them are spacious palaces upon which enormous sums 
have been expended; and in front of their lawns, for 
several miles along the winding brow of the cliffs that 
fall off precipitously to the ocean's edge, is laid the 
noted "Cliff Walk." This is a narrow footpath at the 
edge of the greensward that has the waves dashing 
against the bases of the rocks supporting it. 

Each house has its architecture, and no matter how 
grand and imposing, each is called a "cottage." 
The greatest rivalry has been shown in construction, 
and the styles cover all known methods of building — 
Gothic, Elizabethan, Swiss, Flemish, French, etc. 

There have been lavished upon these palaces of New- 
port, in construction and decoration, large portions of 
the greatest incomes of the multi-millionaires of New 
York and Boston, and hither they hie to enjoy the 
summer and early autumn in a sort of fashionable semi- 
seclusion, mingling only in their own sets, and rather 
resenting the excursions occasionally made by the ple- 
beian folk into Newport to look at their displays. These 
princes of inherited wealth have made Newport peculiarly 
their own, and, their expenditures being on a scale com- 
mensurate with their millions, the growth and improve- 
ment of the newer part of the place have been extraor- 
dinary. 

The Casino is the fashionable center of Newport, a 
building in Old English style, fronting on Bellevue 
54 ^ 



PLAYGROUNDS OF THE EAST 

Avenue, having reading-rooms, a theater, gardens and 
tennis court, and here the band plays in the season, 
and there are concerts and balls. During the fashion- 
able period, Bellevue Avenue is the daily scene of a 
stately procession of handsome equipages of all styles, 
as it is decreed that the great people of Newport shall 
always ride when on exhibition, and they thus pass and 
repass in the afternoons in splendid review. Touro 
Park is a pretty enclosure in the older town, containing 
statues of Commodore M. C. Perry and William EUery 
Channing, who were natives of Newport, and a statue 
of the former's brother, Commodore Oliver H. Perry, the 
victor of Lake Erie, is also at the City Hall, not far away. 

THE OLD STONE MILL 

In Touro Park is the great memorial around which 
the antiquarian treasures of this famous place are 
clustered, the Old Stone Mill, a small round tower, 
overrun with ivy and supported on pillars between 
which are arched openings. Its origin is a mystery, 
though Longfellow tells weirdly of it in his "Skeleton 
in Armor," and some of the wise men suggest that it 
was built by the Norsemen when they first came this 
way and found Vinland so long ago. But the more 
practical townsfolk generally incline to the belief that 
an early colonist put it up for a windmill to grind corn, 
the weight of the evidence appearing to favor the theory 
that it was erected by Governor Benedict Arnold, of 
the colony, who died in 1678, and described it in his will 
as "my stone-built wind-mill." It is, however, of suf- 
ficient antiquity and mystery to have a halo cast around 
it, and is the great relic of the town. 

55 



PLAYGROUNDS OF THE EAST 

ATLANTIC CITY, A GREAT DEMOCRATIC GATHERING PLACE 

The New Jersey seacoast is a succession of watering 
places which city-dwellers frequent in search of cool 
breezes and stimulating surf baths. The coast is a series 
of sandy beaches broken by bays and inlets, and a broad 
belt of pine lands behind them separate the sea and its 
bordering sounds and meadows from the farming region. 
The resorts form an almost unbroken chain from Cape 
May at the southern extremity to Sandy Hook, where 
the long sand-strip terminates at the entrance to New 
York harbor, but the chief of these is Atlantic City, 
with its gay pleasure piers and huge boardwalk where 
a hundred thousand people congregate in the Easter 
promenade. Three railroads lead over from Philadel- 
phia across the level Jersey country, and fast trains 
cover the distance in an hour. 

To Atlantic City belongs the credit of having origi- 
nated a boardwalk by the sea — a feature which has 
since been adopted at other resorts. The first walk 
was built in 1870, a fund of $5,000 having been raised 
for that purpose by the sale of city script. The venture 
was regarded in an unfavorable light by many of the 
conservative citizens, some of whom were large owners 
of real estate, but the younger men carried the project 
through on money privately borrowed until the issue 
of the city obligations could be legalized. The board- 
walk was destroyed by severe storms in the winter of 
1883-4, but was rebuilt in a more substantial manner in 
the spring of 1884 at a cost of less than $10,000. Since 
then the walk has been improved and rebuilt until it is 
now from twenty to sixty feet in width and nine miles 
long, the cost exceeding $500,000. 



PLAYGROUNDS OF THE EAST 

It is lined on one side with hotels, pavilions, shops 
and amusement buildings. The ocean side gives an 
unobstructed outlook over beach, surf and sea. Five 
amusement piers one thousand feet in length extend from 
the walk into the ocean. These contain theaters, music 
halls, restaurants, ball rooms, bazars, picture shows and 
an endless variety of amusement places. The board- 
walk is brilliantly lighted at night by myriads of electric 
lights, and here the gay crowds throng seeking enter- 
tainment. The shops themselves offer diversion, for 
many contain rare collections of Oriental goods, price- 
less rugs and fascinating curios. 

But the boardwalk is not the only attraction of 
Atlantic City, for there is a fine bathing beach, oppor- 
tunities for sailing and fishing, and even a country club 
with fine golf links. All sorts of pleasure for all sorts 
of seekers Atlantic City offers, and all things considered 
it is the most American of American resorts. 



07 



CHAPTER V 
NATURAL WONDERS OF THE EAST 

THE FAIRY REALM OF LURAY CAVERNS — MAMMOTH 

CAVE, KENTUCKY NATURAL BRIDGE NIAGARA OF 

A THOUSAND MOODS. 

WE READ in Coleridge's ''Kubla Khan" of ''caverns 
measureless to man/' and such indeed are the actual 
caverns of Luray, a veritable fairy realm beneath the 
earth in the famous Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. 
Since their discovery in 1878, however, the caves have 
been thoroughly explored and charted so that the visitor 
may penetrate the labyrinthine passages and still find 
his way back to the common light of day. 

Entering the grand vestibule, the first emotion one 
feels is that of mute wonder. The mind fails to grasp 
the grandeur revealed in such a majestic manner, until 
it gradually accustoms itself to the fantastic shapes, 
the almost oppressive silence and the weird influence 
of this subterranean realm. Queer shapes present them- 
selves at every turn, aping grotesquely the objects of 
the outer world, suggesting some animal, some familiar 
vegetable formation, or some creation of man. Glit- 
tering stalactites blaze in front, fluted columns, dra- 
peries in broad folds, cascades of snow-white stone, illu- 
minated by the glare of the electric light, fill the mind 
with wonder and awe. One stands amazed in the royal 
chambers of Nature. 

Various apartments and objects have been named in 



NATURAL WONDERS OF THE EAST 

honor of some distinguished personage or after some 
thing to which they bear a striking resemblance. The 
Elfin Ramble, an open plateau five hundred feet long 
by one hundred wide, is the playground of the prin- 
cesses of this fairy realm. Pluto's Chasm, a wide rift 
in the walls, contains a specter clothed in shadowy dra- 
peries. Hovey's Hall is adorned with statuary and 
stalactite draperies, which, for beauty of coloring, trans- 
lucency and symmetrical folding, are unexcelled by any- 
thing in the cave. Giant's Hall is a vast space, embrac- 
ing several chambers. Heroic sentinel forms loom up 
on every side, guarding the marvelous beauty of Titania's 
Veil, and watching over the crystal waters of Diana's 
Bath. The Saracen's Tent, the Cathedral, with its 
grand organ, and the Bridal Chamber, all look amazingly 
like the objects for which they are named. Hades, a 
region sparkling with limpid lakes and peopled with gob- 
lins, receives its name from the bewildering labyrinth 
through which the tourist must tread his way, but not- 
withstanding its uninviting name, it is a very attractive 
portion of the cave and contains many wonderful forma- 
tions. The Ball Room, a magnificent apartment, 
furnished, is full of interest, while Campbell's Hall, 
named for the discoverer of the cave, is likewise rich in 
ornamentation. 

The temperature of Luray is uniformly 54° Fahr. and 
the air is so pure that it has been forced for therapeutic 
purposes through all the rooms of the Limair sanatorium 
built on the summit of Cave Hill. Tests made for 
several years demonstrated the perfect bacteriologic 
purity of the air, which is practically filtered, being 
drawn into the cave through myriads of rocky crevices and 

59 



NATURAL WONDERS OF THE EAST 

further cleansed by floating over transparent springs 
and pools. 

The waters of the cavern seem to be wholly destitute 
of Hfe and the only existing creatures are a few bats, 
rats, mice, spiders, flies and small centipedes, though 
when the cave was first entered the floor was covered 
with the footprints of former inhabitants — raccoons, 
bears and wolves. Traces of human habitation 
there were, too — charcoal, flint, moccasin tracks, 
and even a skeleton embedded in stalagmite, esti- 
mated to have lain where found for about five hundred 
years. 

The caverns are carved from Silurian limestone, and 
at some period subsequent to their original excavation 
they were completely filled with glacial mud, heavily 
acid, by means of which the dripstone was eroded into 
its present grotesque shapes. The stalactitic display 
exceeds that of any other known cavern. 

MAMMOTH CAVE 

About ninety miles south of Louisville is the famous 
Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. This is the largest known 
cavern in the world, extending for a distance of nine or 
ten miles, the various avenues that have been explored 
having a total length approximating two hundred miles. 
The carboniferous limestones of Kentucky, in which the 
cave is located, occupy an area of eight thousand square 
miles, and the geologists estimate that there are prob- 
ably a hundred thousand miles of open caverns beneath 
this surface. There is a hotel near the cave entrance, 
and the mouth is reached by passing do"v\Ti a rocky ravine 
through the forest. It is a sort of funnel-shaped opening 
60 




Photo by Brown Bos. 

Vaughn's Dome. Among the most surprising featm-es of scenery in Mammoth 
Cave Kentucky, are the vertical shafts, sometimes over a hundred feet that 
pSrc4 through ah levels from the uppermost galleries down to the lowest floor. 



NATURAL WONDERS OF THE EAST 

about a hundred feet in diameter at the top, with steep 
walls fifty feet high. 

A hunter accidentally discovered the cave in 1809, 
and for years afterwards it was entered chiefly to obtain 
niter for the manufacture of gunpowder, especially dur- 
ing the War of 1812, the niter being found in deposits on 
the cave floor, mainly near the entrance, and owing its 
origin to the accumulation of animal remains, mostly of 
bats, in which the cave abounds. 

Upon entering the cave, the first impression is made 
by a chaos of limestone formations, moist with water 
oozing from above, and then is immediately felt what is 
known as "the breath" of the cave. It has pure air 
and an even temperature of 52° to 56°, maintained all the 
year round. In summer the relatively cooler air flows 
out of the entrance, while in winter the colder air outside 
is drawn in, and this makes the movement of "the 
breath" at once apparent from the difference of tem- 
perature and currents of wind when passing the entrance. 
For nearly a haK-mile within are seen the remains of the 
government niter-works, the vats are undecayed, and 
ruts of cart-wheels are traceable on the floor. The 
Rotimda is then entered, a hall seventy-five high and 160 
feet across, out of which avenues lead in various direc- 
tions. The vast interior contains a succession of wonder- 
ful chambers, domes, abysses, grottoes, lakes, rivers, 
cataracts, stalactites, etc. 

There are eyeless fish and crawfish, and a prolific 
population of bats. In the subterranean explorations 
there are two routes usually followed, a short one of 
eight miles and another of twenty miles. Various appro- 
priate names are given the different parts of the cave, 

61 



NATURAL WONDERS OF THE EAST 

and curious and interesting legends are told about them, 
one of the tales being of the Bridal Chamber, which 
got its name because an ingenious maiden who had 
promised at the deathbed of her mother she would not 
marry any man on the face of the earth, came down here 
and was wedded. 

NATURAL BRIDGE 

About a hundred miles south of Luray is another 
impressive and wonderful sight — the Natural Bridge of 
Virginia. Many tourists annually visit this interesting 
section of the South. 

The chief river of Virginia is the James, a noble stream, 
rising in the AUeghanies and flowing for 450 miles from 
the western border of the Old Dominion until it falls into 
Chesapeake Bay at Hampton Roads. Its sources are 
in a region noted for mineral springs, and the union of 
Jackson and Cowpasture Rivers makes the James, 
which flows to the base of the Blue Ridge, and there 
receives a smaller tributary, not inappropriately named 
the Calfpasture River. The James breaks through the 
Blue Ridge by a magnificent gorge at Balcony Falls. 
Seven miles away, spanning the little stream known as 
Cedar Brook, is the bridge, an arch of blue limestone, 
215 feet high, ninety feet wide, with a span of a hundred 
feet thrown across the chasm. Overlooking the river 
and the bridge and all the country roundabout are the 
two noble Peaks of Otter, rising about four thousand 
feet, the highest mountains in that part of the AUeghanies. 

The Natural Bridge is situated at the extremity of a 
deep chasm, through which a brook flows, and across the 
top of which extends a rocky stratum in the form of a 
62 



NATURAL WONDERS OF THE EAST 

graceful arch. It looks as if the limestone rock had 
originally covered the entire stream bed, which then 
flowed through a subterranean tunnel, the rest of the 
limestone roof having fallen in and been gradually washed 
away. The crown of the arch is forty feet thick, the 
rocky walls are perpendicular, and over the top passes 
a public road, which, since it is on the same level as the 
immediately adjacent country, one may cross in a coach 
without noticing the chasm beneath. Various large 
forest trees grow beneath and under the arch, but are 
not tall enough to reach it ; and on the rocky abutments 
are carved the names of many persons who have climbed 
as high as they dared on the steep face of the precipice. 
Highest of all, for about seventy years, was the name of 
Washington, who, in his youth, ascended about twenty- 
five feet to a point never before reached; but this feat 
was surpassed in 1818 by James Piper, a college student, 
who actually climbed from the foot to the top of the 
rock. In 1774 Thomas Jefferson obtained a grant of 
land from George III which included the Natural Bridge, 
and he was long the owner, building the first house there, 
a log cabin with two rooms, one being for the reception 
of strangers. 

NIAGARA OF A THOUSAND MOODS 

''God's greatest miracle in stone," Chief Justice Mar- 
shall said of the Natural Bridge; but greater by far is 
the miracle of water at Niagara, pounding its tumultuous 
way year after year ''against the rocks of time." The 
Indians gave to the Falls the appropriate name of "The 
Thunder of Waters," and deafening indeed is the roar 
of this mighty cataract. 

63 



NATURAL WONDERS OF THE EAST 

It has been said that Niagara has a thousand moods, 
and certain it is that its face is ever changing, 
though ever beautiful, whether one look on it through 
rainbow mists or in the gloom of night. There is in 
some ways no spectacle in the world so impressive: 
many scenes display the beauty and wonder of Nature; 
none so well'as this her elemental force and magnificence. 
The Lake Erie level is 564 feet above the sea, and in 
its tortuous course of about thirty-six miles to Lake 
Ontario, the Niagara River descends 333 feet, leaving the 
level of Ontario still 231 feet above the sea. More than 
half of all the fresh water on the entire globe — the 
whole enormous volume from the vast lake region of 
North America, draining a territory equaling the entire 
continent of Europe, pours through this contracted 
channel out of Lake Erie. There is a swiit current 
for several miles, but farther on the speed is gentler as 
the channel broadens, and Grand Island divides it. 
Then it reunites into a wider stream, flowing sluggishly 
westward with small islands dotting the surface. About 
fifteen miles from Lake Erie the river narrows and the 
rapids begin. They flow with great speed for a mile 
above the falls, in this distance descending fifty-two 
feet. Goat Island divides their channel at the brink of 
the cataract, where the river makes a bend from the 
west back to the north. This island separates the 
waters, although nine-tenths go over the Canadian fall, 
which the abrupt bend curves into horseshoe form. This 
fall is about 158 feet high, and the height of the smaller 
fall on the American side is 165 feet. The two cataracts 
spread out to 4,750 feet breadth, though the steep 
wooded bank of Goat Island, which separates them, 
64 




Photo by Brown Bros 

In the Blue Ridge Country. Natural Bridge, Virginia, which Henrj' Chij- once 
d(!S('ril)ed as "a bridge; not made with hands, that spans a river, can-ios a highway, 
and makes two mountains one." 



NATURAL WONDERS OF THE EAST 

occupies about one-fourth the distance, but the river, 
just below the cataract, contracts to about one thousand 
feet. 

ALONG THE RAPIDS 

For seven miles the gorge is carved out, the river 
banks on both sides rising to the top level of the falls, 
and the bottom sinking deeper and deeper as the lower 
rapids descend towards Lewiston, and in some places 
contracting to very narrow limits. Two miles below the 
cataract the river is compressed within eight hundred 
feet, and a mile farther do\^Ti, at the outlet of the Whirl- 
pool, where a sharp right-angled turn is made, the 
enormous current is contracted within a passage of less 
than two hundred and fifty feet in width. In the seven 
miles distance, these lower rapids descend over a hundred 
feet, and then with placid current the Niagara River 
flows a few miles farther northward to Lake Ontario. 

The tremendous horsepower of Niagara is not the 
least wonderful of the facts connected with the falls, 
and the practical-minded visitor will be much interested 
in the extensive power houses that have been con- 
structed. The average flow of water over both falls is 
estimated to be 222,400 cubic feet per second, represent- 
ing a potential horsepower of some 4,900,000. The 
power of the falls was utilized for the operation of a 
sawmill as early as 1704; but the present development 
dates only from 1875, when the Niagara Power Canal 
was constructed. In 1901 the Ontario Power Company 
and the Niagara Power Company were established, and 
since then still other smaller companies have sprung 
into being. With the development of these arose the 

6 65 



NATURAL WONDERS OF THE EAST 

danger that the natural beauty of Niagara might be 
destroyed or lessened. The amount of water that may 
be used for power purposes has accordingly been limited 
and by the terms of a treaty concluded between the 
United States and Great Britain, the total amount of 
water that may be diverted for power purposes is 56,000 
cubic feet per second, of which Canada may have 36,000 
cubic feet and the United States 20,000. 

There is a belief that half the water passing into Lake 
Erie from the upper lakes does not go over the falls, but 
finds its way into Ontario through a subterranean 
channel. The actual current is sufficiently enormous, 
however, and steadily wearing away the rocks over which 
it descends, it has during the past ages excavated the 
gorge of the lower rapids. There is no doubt the first 
location of the great cataract was on the face of the 
terrace near Lewiston, and it has gradually retired by 
the eating away, year after year, of the rocky ledges 
over which the waters pour. This, however, has not 
been done in a hurry, for the geologists studying the 
subject estimate that it has required nearly 37,000 
years to bring the falls from Lewiston back to their 
present location. Nature moves slowly, indeed, though 
with the force of a Niagara she moves inexorably. 



CHAPTER VI 
FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS OF FREEDOM 

THE FIRST GREAT BATTLEGROUND OF THE REVOLU- 
TION — WHERE WASHINGTON AND THE PATRIOTS WERE 
WELL TESTED — THE TURNING POINT OF THE CIVIL 
WAR. 

ACROSS THE Charles River, north from the Shawmut 
peninsula of Boston is Chariest own, and the crowning 
glory of Charlestown is the Bunker Hill Monument, 
marking the greatest historical event of Boston, the 
famous battle fought June 17, 1775, when the British 
stormed the Yankee redoubt on the hilltop north of 
Charles River, which was then open country, but long 
ago became surrounded by the buildings of the expanding 
city, excepting the small space of the battlefield, now 
reserved for a park around the monument. The granite 
shaft rises 221 feet, upon the highest part of the 
eminence. 

The provincial troops had assembled in large numbers 
north and west of Boston, mainly in Cambridge 
to the westward, and hearing that the British in- 
tended to occupy Bunker and Breed's Hills, in Charles- 
town, a force was sent under Colonel William Prescott, 
a veteran of the old French war, in the night, to fortify 
Bunker Hill. Upon crossing over, they hastily decided 
that it was better to occupy Breed's Hill, which, while 
part of the same ridge, was nearer Boston, and they con- 
structed upon it a square redoubt. The British ships 

67 



FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS 

in Charles River discovered this at daylight, and began 
a cannonade; American reinforcements were sent from 
Cambridge; and in the afternoon General Gage attacked. 
His onslaught was three times repulsed with heavy 
slaughter; then, the Americans' ammunition being spent, 
they could only resist with clubbed muskets and stones, 
and had to retreat. 

Facing Boston, in front of the monument, the direction 
from which the attack came, is the bronze statue of 
Prescott, the broad-brimmed hat shading his earnest 
face, as, with deprecatory yet determined gesture, he 
uttered the memorable words of warning that resulted 
in such terrible punishment of the British storming 
colunm: ''Don't fire until I tell you; don't fire until 
you see the whites of their eyes." The traces of the 
hastily constructed breastworks of the redoubt can be 
seen on the brow of the hill, and a stone shows where 
Dr. Joseph Warren fell, killed in the battle. He came 
to the fight as a volunteer, and had been made a general 
in the provincial army. 

The top of the tall monument gives a splendid view 
in all directions over the harbor and suburbs of Boston, 
with traces of Mount Wachusett far to the westward, 
and on clear days a dim outline of the distant White 
Mountains. The corner-stone of the monument was 
laid by Lafayette on his American visit in 1825, and 
it was completed and dedicated in 1842, the oration on 
both occasions being delivered by Daniel Webster. One 
ofhis glowing passages thus tells the purpose of the 
monujnent: 

''We come as Americans to mark a spot which must 
forever be dear to us and to our posterity. We wish 
68 




Photo by Brown Bros. 

The Memorial of a Great Battle. Bunker Hill Monument, in the northern sec- 
tion of Boston. It was oiv this hill on June 17, 1775, that the famous battle was 
fought so valiantly between the American patriots and the British troops of King 
George. 



FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS 

that whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn his eye 
hither, may behold that the place is not undistinguished 
where the first great battle of the Revolution was fought. 
We wish that this structure may proclaim the magnitude 
and importance of that event to every class and every 
age. We wish that infancy may learn the purpose of 
its erection from eternal lips, and that weary and with- 
ered age may behold it and be solaced by the recollec- 
tions which it suggests. We wish that labor may look 
up here and be proud in the midst of its toil. We wish 
that in those days of disaster which, as they come upon 
all nations, must be expected to come upon us also, 
desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and 
be assured that the foundations of our national powers 
are still strong." 

WHERE WASHINGTON AND THE PATRIOTS WERE 
WELL TESTED 

As Boston cherishes Charlestown and Bunker Hill, 
so Philadelphia cherishes Valley Forge, a small village in 
Chester County, Pennsylvania, about twenty miles north- 
west of Philadelphia, for it was here amid intense suffer- 
ing from cold, starvation and sickness that Washington 
and his half-clad army spent the frightful winter of 
1777-78. On December nineteenth after the battles of 
Brandywine and Germantown and the occupation of 
Philadelphia by the British, the army, numbering about 
10,000, went into camp here, the site having been selected 
by Washington partly because the army v/as thus placed 
between the British forces and York, Pennsylvania 
(about sixty-five miles west of Valley Forge), where 
Congress was in session. The camp was almost unap- 

69 



FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS 

proachable from the west by reason of the precipitous 
hillsides and Valley Creek, a small stream flowing 
northward at their base into the Schuylkill River 
which afforded a barrier on the north; on the east 
a series of intrenchments and rifle-pits were built. 
In this vicinity the army remained encamped until 
the middle of June. 

As a result of the mismanagement and general incapa- 
city of the Commissary Department, the armj^ received 
little food or clothing during the winter months; in the 
latter part of December nearly 2900 men were unfit 
for duty on account of sickness or the lack of clothing, 
and by February this number had increased to nearly 
4000, a state of affairs which Washington said was due 
to ''an eternal round of the most stupid mismanagement 
(by which) the public treasure is expended to no kind 
of purpose, while the men have been left to perish by 
inches with cold and nakedness." There were many 
desertions and occasional symptoms of mutiny, but for 
the most part the soldiers bore their suffering with heroic 
fortitude. 

In 1893 the state of Pennsylvania created a commis- 
sion of ten members, with power to purchase about 
475 acres in Chester and Montgomery counties of the 
original camp ground. This tract is now known as 
the Valley Forge Park. Washington's headquarters were 
preserved, a picturesque old stone house built in about 
the year 1758, several other historic buildings were also 
kept and several bake-ovens and huts of the kind used 
by the army reproduced in order that visitors may as 
far as possible picture the camp exactly as it was during 
that distressing winter. Thousands of pilgrims visit 
70 



FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS 

this honored spot every year and it is a favorite meeting 
ground for the Boy Scouts of the vicinity. 

THE TURNING POINT OF THE CIVIL WAR 

But of all cherished battlefields none probably means 
so much to Americans as that of Gettysburg, where at 
the beginning of July, 1863, was fought the most decisive 
battle of the Civil War. The field is seven miles north 
of the southern boundary of Pennsylvania and over 
forty miles from the Potomac River, for after the victory 
of Chancellorsville in May the Confederates determined 
to carry the war north into the enemy's country. 

There are two parallel ridges bordering the plain on 
which Gettysburg stands — the long Seminary Ridge 
which stretches from north to south about a mile west of 
the town and gets its name from the Lutheran Theo- 
logical Seminary located upon it, and the Cemetery 
Ridge to the south of the town which contains on its 
northern flat-topped hill the village cemetery. There is 
an outlying eminence called Gulp's Hill farther to the 
east, making with the Cemetery Ridge, a formation 
bent around much like a fish-hook, with the graveyard 
at the bend and Gulp's Hill at the barb, while far down 
at the southern end of the long straight shank, as the 
ridge extends for two miles away, with an intervening 
rocky gorge called the Devil's Den, there are two peaks, 
formed of tree-covered crags, known as the ''Little 
Round Top" and the ''Big Round Top." These long 
parallel ridges, with the intervale and the country imme- 
diately around them, are the battlefield. It covers about 
twenty-five square miles, and lies mainly southwest of 
the town, 

71 



FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS 

THE GETTYSBURG MONUMENTS 

As far as monuments go Gettysburg is better marked 
than probably any other battlefield in the world. Over 
a million dollars have been expended on the grounds and 
monuments. There are some five hundred monuments 
upon the field, placed with the utmost care in the exact 
localities, and executed in bronze, marble, granite, 
on boulders and otherwise. Marking-posts also designate 
the positions of the various organizations in the opposing 
armies. 

To the north and west of Gettysburg is the scene of 
the first day's contest, but the more interesting part is 
to the south. Ascending the Cemetery Hill, there is 
passed, by the roadside, the house of Jenny Wade, the 
only woman killed in the battle, accidentally shot while 
baking bread. The rounded Cemetery Hill is an elevated 
and strong position having many monuments, and here, 
alongside the little village graveyard, the government 
established a National Cemetery of seventeen acres, 
where 3572 soldiers are buried, over a thousand being 
the unknown dead. A magnificent battle monument 
is here erected, surmounted by a statue of Liberty, and 
at the base of the shaft having figures of War, History, 
Peace and Plenty. This spot was the center of the 
Union line, then a rough, rocky hill. The cemetery was 
dedicated in November, 1863, Edward Everett deliver- 
ing the oration, and the monument on July 1,1869. 

Lincoln's immortal address 

At the cemetery dedication President Lincoln made 
the famous '' twenty-line address" which is regarded as 
his most immortal utterance. He had been requested 
72 



FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS 

to say a few words by way of dedication, and drawing 
from his pocket a crumpled piece of paper on which he 
had written some notes, he spoke as follows: 

'' Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth upon this continent a new Nation, conceived in 
liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men 
are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil 
war, testing whether that nation or any nation, so con- 
ceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are 
met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to 
dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those 
who here gave their lives that that nation might live. 
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot 
consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave 
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have con- 
secrated it far above our power to add or detract. The 
world will little note, nor long remember, what we say 
here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is 
for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfin- 
ished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. 
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task 
remaining before us — that from these honored dead we 
take increased devotion to the cause for which they here 
gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here 
highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain 
— that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of 
freedom, and that government of the people, by the 
people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 
A mile across the valley is Lutheran Seminary, the 
most conspicuous landmark of the Confederate line, and 
to the southeast of this is Gulp's HiU, strewn with rocks 

73 



FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS 

and boulders and covered with trees. The Enimits- 
burg road goes southward down the valley, gradually 
diverging from the Union line, and crossing the fields 
that were the battleground on the second and third days. 
It is bordered by numerous monuments, some of great 
merit, and leads to the Peach Orchard, where the 
line bends sharply back. Peach trees are replanted here 
as the old ones fall. The Wheat Field is alongside, 
now grass-grown. Beyond it the surface goes do^n 
among the crags and broken stones of the Devil's 
Den, a ravine through which flows a stream, coming 
from the orchard and wheat field, and separating them 
from the rocky Round Tops, the sandstone cliffs of 
the Little Round Top rising high above the ravine. 
The fields sloping to the stream above the Den are 
known as the Valley of Death. Among these rocks 
there are many monuments, made of the boulders that 
are so numerous. 

A toilsome path mounts the Big Round Top be- 
yond, and an Observatory on the summit gives a good 
view over almost the entire battlefield. This summit, 
more than three miles south of Gettysburg, has tall 
timber, preserved as it was in the battle. There are 
cannon surmounting the Round Tops, representing 
the batteries in action. Across the valley to the west 
is the long fringe of timber that masked the Confederate 
position on Seminary Ridge. The lines of breastworks 
are maintained, and to the north is the little umbrella- 
shaped grove of trees at which Pickett's charge was 
directed. The Twentieth Massachusetts regiment 
brought here a huge conglomerate boulder from New 
England and set it up as their monument, 
74 



FAMOUS BATTLEFIELDS 

Along the Confederate line on Seminary Ridge to the 
northwest of Gettysburg is marked where General 
Reynolds fell, just within a grove of trees, and an 
equestrian statue of him has been erected on the field. 
From his untimely death, Reynolds is regarded as the 
special Union hero of the battle, as Armistead was the 
Southern. Near by a spirited statue, the ''Massa- 
chusetts Color-Bearer," holds aloft the flag of the Thir- 
teenth Massachusetts regiment, standing upon a slope, 
thus marking the spot where he fell at the opening of 
the conflict. 

Such is the broad and impressive scene of one of the 
leading battles of the world, and the greatest ever fought 
in America. But happily the problems which there 
wrought such havoc have long been settled, and in 
1913 veterans from both North and South met together 
at Gettysburg to commemorate in peace and friendship 
the great battle that had been waged there fifty years 
before. 



75 



CHAPTER VII 
THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

THE nation's capital CAPITOL HILL AND ITS 

BUILDINGS THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS OTHER PUB- 
LIC BUILDINGS WHERE PAN-AMERICANS CONGREGATE 

THE CORCORAN ART GALLERY SMITHSONIAN INSTI- 
TUTION WASHINGTON MONUMENT BELOVED MT. 

VERNON. 

ONE OF THE most stately domes in the world is that 
of the national Capitol at Washington and its perfect 
site on a hilltop dominating the city shows the great 
advantage which Washington enjoys above other cities 
in having been intelligently planned before its buildings 
were erected instead of afterward. The Capitol is 
indeed the crowning glory of Washington, both literally 
and figuratively. The noble dome surmounted by a 
colossal statue of America may be seen from far and near 
no matter in what way one approaches the city. 

The striking thing about Washington is that, unlike 
other capitals of great nations, it was created for the 
sole purpose of a seat of government, apart from any 
question of commercial rank or population. After the 
adoption of the Federal Constitution there was a pro- 
tracted conflict in Congress over the claims of rival 
localities for the seat of government, but it was finally 
decided that Philadelphia should remain the capital for 
ten years, while after the year 1800 it should be located 
on the Potomac River, on a site selected by Washington. 
76 



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THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

within a district of one hundred square miles, ceded by 
Maryland and Virginia, to be under the exclusive juris- 
diction of Congress. The location was at the time 
nearly in the geographical center of the thirteen original 
states. The capital was originally called the ''Federal 
City," but this was changed by law in 1791 to the ''City 
of Washington." The corner-stone of the Capitol was 
laid in 1793, its front facing east upon the elevated 
plateau of the hill, and the town was, according to the 
original designer, to have been built mainly upon this 
plateau. Behind the Capitol, on its western side, the 
brow of the hill descended rather sharply, and here they 
laid out a wide and open Mall, westward over the lower 
ground to the bank of the Potomac River, more than a 
mile away. Off toward the northwest, at the end of one 
of the diagonal avenues, they placed the Executive Man- 
sion, with its extensive park and gardens stretching 
southward to the river. 

The design was^to have the city in an elevated and 
salubrious location, with the president secluded in a 
comfortable retreat amid ample grounds in the suburbs. 
But few plans eventuate exactly as expected; and the 
people, when they came to the new settlement, would 
not build the town on Capitol Hill as had been intended, 
but persisted in settling upon the lower ground along 
and adjacent to the broad avenue leading from the 
Capitol to the Executive Mansion; and there, and for a 
long distance beyond the latter to the north and west, 
Ues the city of Washington today. Pennsylvania Avenue, 
160 feet wide, joining these two widely separated Govern- 
ment estabhshments and extending far to the northwest, 
thus became the chief street of the modem city. 

77 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

CAPITOL HILL AND ITS BUILDINGS 

After the British burned the original Capitol in 1814 it 
was rebuilt, being completed in 1827. In 1851 the 
growth of Congress demanded an extension, and it is 
this extension which supphed the wings and dome that 
has made the building so attractive architecturally. 
This massive government palace stretches over 750 
feet along the top of the hiU, a huge impressive white 
pile, noble in its simpUcity. The architecture is classic, 
with Corinthian details, and, to add dignity to the 
western front, which overlooks the city, a marble terrace 
has been constructed at its base on the crest of the hiU, 
which is approached by two broad flights of steps. The 
Capitol is surrounded by a park of about fifty acres, 
including the western decHvity of the hill and part of 
the plateau on top. Upon this plateau, on the eastern 
front, vast crowds assemble every fourth year to witness 
the inauguration of the president. 

The rotunda is the most striking feature of the Capitol 
interior. It is nearly one hundred feet in diameter, and 
rises 180 feet to the ceiling of the dome, which is orna- 
mented with fine frescoes by Brumidi. Paintings on the 
walls represent events in the early history of the coun- 
try. Away up in the top of the dome there is a Whisper- 
ing Gallery, to which a stairway laboriously leads. 

The old halls of the Senate in the original wings of the 
Capitol are now devoted to the Supreme Court and 
those of the House to a gallery of statuary. Beyond, 
on either hand, are the extensive new wings — the Senate 
Chamber to the north and the Representatives' HaU to 
the south. Each is surrounded by corridors, beyond 
which are committee rooms, and there are spacious gal- 
78 




n/Mfnr^f-iJ— ] I 



Washington and Its Buildings. The plan of the city, with its avenues 
radiating from the Capitol, is here well shown. (79) 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

leries for the public. Each member has his chair and 
desk, the seats being arranged in semicircles around the 
rostrum. Close to the Senate Chamber is a gorgeous 
''Marble Hall" in which senators give audience to their 
visitors, and magnificently decorated apartments for 
the president and vice-president. 

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

Close to the Capitol lies the Congressional Library and 
to many persons this is the most interesting of all the 
public buildings, containing as it does a vast store of 
artistic as well as literary wealth. It stands on the 
plateau southeast of the Capitol and is an enormous 
structure — a quadrangle inclosing four courts and a 
central rotunda. It was finished in 1897 and cost over 
six million dollars. The book-stacks contain accommo- 
dations for about four million and a half volumes. 

The style of the library is Italian Renaissance modi- 
fied, and the material is Concord granite on the exterior 
and enameled brick within the courts. The framework 
is steel. Within the walls are incased and decorated 
wholly by stucco and marble. There is rich sculpture 
and mosaic work throughout and symboHc mural paint- 
ings, the work of some of the most brilliant artists 
America has produced. One could, indeed, spend many 
days seeing the Library of Congress and still not see all 
its beauty. Yet even the chance visitor must remem- 
ber the splendid bronze doors of Olin T. Warner and 
Frederick Macmonnies, the H. O. Walker paintings of 
Lyric Poetry, the Walter McEwen paintings of subjects 
from Greek mythology, the J. W. Alexander paintings 
of ''The Evolution of the Book," the Elihu Vedder 
80 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

decorations embodying the idea of government, Simmons' 
^' Muses," the Pompeiian panels of George W. May^vard, 
Gari Melchers' ''War" and "Peace," Kenyon Cox's 
"Arts" and "Sciences," the Vedder mosaic of Minerva, 
the rotunda statues of Bela L. Pratt, and the glorious 
dome frescoes of E. H. Blashfield, personifying the great 
nations of history. In the canopy of the dome, above 
and within the collar, Blashfield has also painted, as if 
floating in the sky, an exquisitely graceful female figure, 
caUed Human Understanding, who lifts her veil and 
gazes up, as if seeking more and more guidance from 
on high. Two cherubs attend her, carrying the Book of 
I^owledge. 

The practical work of the library concentrates in the 
rotunda, where (in the center) stands the circular desk 
of the superintendent and his assistants, who can speedily 
communicate with all parts of the building by a system 
of telephones, and by pneumatic tubes, which carry 
messages and orders for books to any required room or 
book-stack. The floor is filled with small desks, arranged 
in concentric circles and separated by light screens or 
curtains, and the intrusion of mere sight-seers is for- 
bidden. Unlimited light and air are assured, and quiet 
is enforced; while celerity in obtaining and distributing 
books is secured by various devices that librarians else- 
where admire and copy. 

OTHER PUBLIC BUILDINGS 

The "White House," like the older part of the Capitol, 
is constructed of Virginia freestone, and painted white. 
It stands within a park at some distance back from the 
street, a semi-circular driveway leading up to the Ionic 

81 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

colonnade supporting the front central portico. The 
grounds stretch down to the Potomac River; which 
flows about two hundred yards below its southern front. 
It is two stories high, about 170 feet long, and eighty-six 
feet deep. This building, like the Capitol, was burned in 
the British invasion of 1814 and afterwards restored. 
It is a comfortable mansion, though rigid in simplicity. 
The East Room is the finest apartment, occupying the 
whole of the eastern side, and is kept open for visitors 
during most of the day. The public wander through 
it awaiting the President's coming to his almost daily 
reception. It is an impressive room and in earlier times 
was the scene of various inauguration feasts when presi- 
dents kept open house. 

A corridor leads westward from the East Room, 
through the center of the White House, to the conserva- 
tories, which are prolonged nearly two hundred feet 
farther westward. A series of fine apartments, caUed 
the Green, Blue and Red Rooms, from the predominant 
colors in their decorations, are south of this corridor, 
with their windows opening upon the gardens. These 
apartments open into each other, and finally into the 
State Dining Hall on the western side of the building, 
which is adjoined by a conservatory. North of the 
corridor the first floor contains the family rooms, and on 
the second floor are the sleeping-rooms and also the 
public offices. The Cabinet Room, in the center of the 
building, is a comparatively small apartment, where the 
Cabinet officers assemble around a long table. On one 
side of it, at the head of a broad staircase, are the offices 
of the secretaries, over the East Room; and on the other 
side, the President's private apartment, which is called 
82 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

the Library. Here the President sits, with the southern 
sun streaming through the windows, to give audience to 
his visitors, who are passed in by the secretaries. 

To the east of the A^Tiite House is the Treasur}^ Building, 
extending over five hundred feet along Fifteenth Street, 
enriched by a magnificent Ionic colonnade, modeled from 
that of the Athenian Temple of Minerva. Each end has 
an elaborate Ionic portico, v\iiile the western front, fac- 
ing the White House, has a grand central entrance. 
This was the first great building constructed for a Gov- 
ernment department, and is the headquarters of the 
secretary of the treasury. 

Upon the western side of the White House is the most 
splendid of all the department buildings, accommodating 
the State, War and Navy Departments. It is Roman 
Doric, built of granite, four stories high, with Mansard 
and pavilion roofs and porticoes. The Salon of the 
Ambassadors, or the Diplomatic Reception Room, is its 
finest apartment, and is the audience chamber of the 
secretary of state, who occupies the adjoining Secretary's 
Hall, also a beautiful room. This great building is con- 
structed around two large interior courts, the Army 
occupying the northern and western wings, and the 
Navy the eastern side, where among the great attrac- 
tions are the miodels of the famous warships of the 
American Navy. 

WHERE PAN-AMERICANS CONGREGATE 

Of the most recently constructed buildings in Wash- 
ington the Pan-American is the most interesting as well 
as the most beautiful. Its wonderful glass-covered court, 
sixty feet square, th^ ^unkm gardens, beautiful statuary 

83 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

and artistic grounds are the admiration of every visitor. 
The building is conducted by the twenty-one republics 
of North, South and Central America for the develop- 
ment of Pan-American commerce and friendship. Its 
construction cost was one million dollars, one-fourth 
being paid by the American republics and three-fourths 
by Andrew Carnegie. 

THE CORCORAN ART GALLERY 

Near the White House is the Corcoran Art Gallery, 
known around the world because of its valuable collec- 
tions. It is an attractive building, amply endowed by 
the late banker, WiUiam W. Corcoran, whose fortune was 
laid when he had the pluck to take a government loan 
which seemed slow of sale. 

The style of the building is Neo-Greek, and the 
external walls above the granite basement are of marble, 
white, pure and brilliant. Below the elaborately carved 
cornice runs a frieze bearing the names of eleven famous 
sculptors and painters. Original marbles, bronzes, rare 
paintings, and casts and replicas from the finest speci- 
mens of antique and modern sculpture, fill the rooms and 
line the corridors. 

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 

In Washington's Farewell Address, issued in 1796, 
there occurs the phrase, ^'An institution for the increase 
and diffusion of knowledge," and it was well known that 
the Father of his Country cherished a project for a 
national institution of learning in the new Federal City. 
This was evidently communicated to James Smithson, 
an Englishman, by one of his intimates in Paris, Joel 
84 




Photo by Wi.'lln,,! II. h'au 



Reading Room of Congressional Library. Under the dome of the vast, 
high-walled reading room three hundred students can work easily at one time. 
The book-stack of the library are a quarter of a mile distant from the Senate 
and House of Representatives, but the buildings are connected by a tunnel, 
through which runs an endless cable, by means of which any book needed for 
reference by a member of Congress can be in his hands in three minutes. 



Plwlo by Brown Bros. _ 

distance of over twenty miles m every du-ection. 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

Barlow, a noted American, who was familiar with Wash- 
ington's plan, and in this way originated the residuary 
bequest, which was contained in the following clause of 
Smithson's will: ''I bequeath the whole of my property 
to the United States of America, to found at Washington, 
under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an 
establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowl- 
edge among men." 

The ornate building of red Seneca brownstone which 
stands upon the Mall was designed in 1847 and finished 
in 1855. Its grand front stretches about 450 feet, and 
its nine towers and turrets rise from seventy-five to 
150 feet. This, the original building, contains a museum 
of natural history and anthropology. In connection with 
it there is another elaborate structure over three hundred 
feet square — the National Museum — containing numer- 
ous courts, surrounding a central rotunda, beneath which 
a fountain plashes. This is under the same management, 
and directly supported by the Government, the design 
being to perfect a collection much like the British 
Museum, but paying more attention to American antiq- 
uities and products. This adjunct museum began with 
the gifts by foreign Governments to the Philadelphia 
Centennial Exposition in 1876, most of them being still 
preserved there. The Smithsonian Trust Fund now 
approximates one miUion dollars, and there are various 
other gifts and bequests held in the Treasury for vari- 
ous scientific purposes similarly administered. 

THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Down near the Potomac, on the Mall, to the west of 
the Smithsonian turrets, is the extensive brick and 

85 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

brownstone building representing the dominant industry 
of the United States, which gives the politicians so much 
anxiety in catering for votes — the Agricultural Depart- 
ment. Here are spacious gardens and greenhouses, an 
arboretum and herbarium, the adjacent buildings also 
containing an agricultural museum. As over three- 
fifths of the men in the United States are farmers and 
farm-v/orkers, and many others are in the adjunct 
industries, it has become a popular saying in Washington 
that if you wish to scare Congress you need only shake a 
cow's tail at it. 

WASHINGTON MONUMENT 

Behind the Agricultural Department, and rising almost 
at the river bank, and in front of the Executive Mansion, 
is the noted Washington Monument, its pointed apex 
elevated 555 feet. This is a square and gradually taper- 
ing shaft, constructed of white Maryland marble, the 
walls fifteen feet thick at the base and eighteen inches at 
the top, the pyramidal apex being fifty-five feet high 
and capped with a piece of aluminum. A fatiguing 
stairway of nine hundred steps leads to the top, and 
there is also a slow-moving elevator. From the little 
square windows, just below the apex, there is a superb 
view over the surrounding country. Afar off to the 
northwest is seen the long hazy wall of the Blue Ridge 
or Kittatinny Mountain range, its prominent peak, the 
Sugar Loaf, being fifty miles distant. To the east is the 
Capitol and its surmounting dome, over a mile away, 
while the city spreads all around the view below, like a 
toy town, its streets crossing as on a chess-board, and 
cut into gores and triangles by the broad, diagonal 
86 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

avenues lined with trees. Coming from the northwest 
the Potomac passes nearly at the foot of the monument, 
with Arlington Heights over on the distant Virginia 
shore, and the broad river channel flowing away to the 
southwest. 

BELOVED MT. VERNON 

There are many interesting trips to be taken from 
Washington, chief among which is that to the home of 
George Washington at Mt. Vernon, about seventeen 
miles below the city on the Potomac, a noble old mansion 
standing among trees at the top of a bluff about two 
hundred feet above the river. As the steamboat 
approaches its bell is solemnly tolled, for this is the 
universal custom in nearing or passing the tomb of this 
first great American. It originated in the reverence of 
a British officer. Commodore Gordon, who, during the 
invasion of the capital in August, 1814, sailed past 
Mount Vernon, and as a mark of respect for the dead 
had the bell of his ship, the "Sea Horse," tolled. 

The steamboat lands at Washington's wharf at the 
foot of the bluff, where he formerly loaded his barges 
with flour ground at his own mill, shipping most of it 
from Alexandria to the West Indies. The road from 
the wharf leads up a ravine cut diagonally in the face 
of the bluff, directly to Washington's tomb, and beside 
the ravine are several weeping Avillows that were brought 
from Napoleon's grave at St. Helena. Washington's 
will directed that his tomb should be built of brick, and 
it is a plain square structure, with a wide arched gateway 
in front and double iron gates. Above is the inscription 
on a marble slab: "Within this enclosure rest the 

87 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

remains of General George Washington." The vault is 
about twelve feet square. It has upon the floor two 
large stone coffins, that on the right hand containing 
Washington, and that on the left his widow Martha, who 
survived him over a year. In a closed vault at the rear 
are the remains of numerous relatives, and in front of the 
tomb monuments are erected to several of them. No 
monument marks the hero, but carved upon the coffin 
is the American coat-of-arms, with the single word 
''Washington." 

The road at the top of the bluff reaches the mansion, 
a long wooden house, with an ample porch facing the 
river. It is built with simplicity, two stories high, and 
contains eighteen rooms, with a small surmounting cupola 
for a lookout. 

As may be supposed this interesting building is filled 
with relics. The most valuable of all of them hangs on 
the wall of the central hall, in a small glass case shaped 
like a lantern — the key of the Bastille — which was sent 
to Washington, as a gift from Lafayette, shortly after 
the destruction of the noted prison in 1789. In sending 
it Lafayette wrote: "It is a tribute which I owe as a son 
to my adopted father; as an aide-de-camp to my general; 
as a missionary of liberty to its patriarch." 

The Washington relics are profuse — portraits, busts, 
old furniture, swords, pistols and other weapons, camp 
equipage, uniforms, clothing, books, autographs and 
musical instruments, including the old harpsichord which 
President Washington bought for two hundred pounds 
in London, as a bridal present for his wife's daughter, 
Eleanor Parke Custis, whom he adopted. There is also 
an old armchair which the Pilgrims brought over in the 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL 

Mayflower in 1620. In the banquet-hall, which is one 
of the wings Washington added, is an elaborately-carved 
Carrara marble mantel, which was sent him at the 
time of building by an EngKsh admirer, Samuel Vaughan. 
Rembrandt Peale's equestrian portrait of Washington 
with his generals covers almost the entire end of this 
hall. Here also is hung the original proof-sheet of 
Washington's Farewell Address. Upstairs is the room 
where Washington died; the bed on which he expired 
and every article of furniture are preserved, including his 
secretary and writing-case, toilet-boxes and dressing- 
stand. Just above this chamber, under the peaked roof, 
is the room in which Mrs. Washington died. 

As one wanders through the old house and looks 
down from the majestic heights over the sweeping river 
that Washington loved so well, one is filled with deep and 
impressive thoughts. One seems nearer than ever before 
to the splendid events of the past that have left us so 
rich a heritage, and an intenser love weUs up in one's 
heart for the brave Father of his Country who left this 
peaceful estate to serve the needs of the new-born 
nation. 



89 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 

RICHMOND OF YESTERDAY AND TODAY — CAPTAIN JOHN 

SMITH AND "none SUCH" LAND CAPITAL OF THE 

CONFEDERACY THE STATE CAPITOL OTHER HIS- 
TORIC PLACES. 

FROM THE earliest colonial times the history of Vir- 
ginia, and especially Tidewater Virginia, including Rich- 
mond and its vicinity, has, by great events and great 
men, been prominently connected with every important 
era in the growth and development of the country. 
This is amply attested by the landmarks on every side — • 
its battlefields, its historic buildings, and its monuments. 
The visitor is almost bewildered by their number. 

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH AND '^NONE SUCH" LAND 

No less a person than the celebrated Captain John 
Smith, associated forever with the romantic story of 
the Indian princess, Pocahontas, may be considered 
the projector of Richmond, for in May, 1607, sho/rtly 
after the landing of the English settlers at Jamestown, 
he with Captain Newport and others ascended the James 
River as far as the place where Richmond now stands. 
In September, 1609, Smith, who was the president at 
Jamestown, again ascended the river to find a better 
location for the colony than Jamestown. He purchased 
from the Indians some land near the present site of 
90 



THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 



Richmond, and so pleased was he with the place that he 
called it ''None Such." 

The city has a delightful situation. The James River 
flows around a curve from the northwest to the south, 
and pours over little cascades among a maze of diminutive 
islands. There are on the northern bank two or three 
large hills and several smaller ones, and Richmond is 
built upon these, as Rome upon her seven hills. The 
State Capitol and a broad white penitentiary crown two 
of the highest. The town was founded at the falls of 
the James in 1737, and the capital of Virginia was moved 
here from Williamsburg in 1779, when there was only a 
small population. 

CAPITAL OF THE CONFEDERACY 

The place did not have much history, however, until 
it became the capital of the Confederacy, and then the 
strong efforts made to capture it and the vigorous defense 
gave it world-wide fame. Beginning in 1862 it was 
made an impregnable fortress, and its fall, when the 
Confederate flank was turned in 1865 through the 
capture of Petersburg, resulted from General Lee's 
retreat westward and his final surrender at Appomattox. 
When Lee abandoned Petersburg there was a panic in 
Richmond, with riot and pillage ; the bridges, storehouses 
and mills were fired, and nearly one-third of the city 
burned. It has since, however, been rebuilt in better style, 
and has extensive manufactures and a profitable trade. 

THE STATE CAPITOL 

The center of Richmond is a park of twelve acres, sur- 
rounding the Capitol, a venerable building upon the 

91 



THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 

summit of Shockoe Hill, and the most conspicuous 
structure in the city. It was built just after the 
American Revolution, the plan having been brought 
from France by Thomas Jefferson, and modeled from 
the ancient Roman temple of the Maison Carree at 
Nismes, the front being a fine Ionic portico. From the 
roof, elevated high above every surrounding building, 
there is an excellent view, disclosing the grand sweep of 
the river among the islands and rapids, going off to the 
south, where it disappears among the hills behind 
Drewry's Bluff, below the town. The square-block 
plan with streets crossing at right angles is well dis- 
played, and the abrupt sides of some of the hills, where 
they have been cut away, disclose the high-colored, 
reddish-yellow soils which have been so prolific in tobacco 
culture, and give the scene such brilliant hues, as well as 
dye the river a chocolate color in times of freshet. The 
city spreads over a wide surface, and has populous sub- 
urbs on the lower lands south of the James. 

This Capitol was the meeting-place of the Confederate 
Congress. It contains the battle-flags of the Virginia 
troops and other relics, and in a gallery built around the 
rotunda are hung portraits of the Virginia governors and 
of the three great military chiefs, Lee, Johnston and 
Jackson. Upon the floor beneath is Houdon's famous 
statue of Washington, made while he was yet alive, and 
regarded as the most accurate reproduction of Wash- 
ington existing. A statue of Henry Clay and a bust of 
Lafayette are also in the rotunda. 

On the esplanade north of the Capitol is Crawford's 
bronze equestrian statue of Washington upon a massive 
granite pedestal, one of the most attractive and elaborate 
92 



THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 

bronzes ever made. The horse is half thrown upon his 
haunches, giving the statue exceeding spirit, while upon 
smaller pedestals around stand six heroic statues in 
bronze of Virginia statesmen of various periods — Patrick 
Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Nelson, George Mason, 
Andrew Lewis and John Marshall — the whole adorned 
with appropriate emblems. In the center of the 
esplanade is Foley's bronze statue of Stonewall Jackson, 
sent from London in 1875 by a number of his English 
admirers as a gift to the state of Virginia. It is of heroic 
size, standing upon a pedestal of Virginia granite, and is 
a striking reproduction. The inscription is: "Presented 
by English gentlemen as a tribute of admiration for the 
soldier and patriot, Thomas J. Jackson, and gratefully 
accepted by Virginia in the name of the Southern 
people." Beneath is inscribed in the granite the remark 
giving his sobriquet which was made at the first battle 
of Bull Run in 1862, where Jackson commanded a 
brigade. At a time when the day was apparently lost, 
his troops made so firm a stand that some one, in admira- 
tion, called out the words that became immortal: 
''Look, there is Jackson standing like a stone wall!" 

OTHER HISTORIC PLACES 

A short distance from the Capitol is the Confederate 
"White House," a square-built dwelling, with a high 
porch in the rear and a small portico in front. Here 
lived Jefferson Davis during his career as president of 
the Confederacy. It is now a museum of war relics. 
Near by is St. Paul's Episcopal Church, where Davis 
was attending service on the eventful Sunday morning in 
April, 1865, when he was brought the fateful telegram 

93 



THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL 

from General Lee which said that Richmond must be 
immediately evacuated. In the central part of the 
residential quarter, on Franklin Street, is the plain 
brick house which during the Civil War was the home of 
General Lee. It is related that after the Appomattox 
surrender, when he returned to this house,^the people 
of Richmond conceived the idea that he and] his family 
were suffering for the necessaries of life, and so generous 
were the gifts poured in that the upper parts of the house 
were fiUed with barrels of flour, meats, etc., and the 
supplies became so bountiful that Lee directed their 
distribution among the poor. 

A fine equestrian statue of General Lee was erected on 
Park Avenue in 1890 and there are various other monu- 
ments and places of historic interest. The '^ first house," 
a low stone cabin on Main Street, is believed by many to 
have been occupied by the Indian Powhatan, though 
it was probably constructed after his time. In St. John's 
Church, built in 1740, the first Virginia Convention lis- 
tened to Patrick Henry's impassioned speech: ''Give me 
liberty or give me death!" Under the shadow of the 
adjoining Libby Hill was the famous Libby Prison of 
the Civil War, one chapter of the history of the city 
that one would rather forget. Altogether Richmond is a 
vast treasure house of relics sacred to both North and 
South, because the North has come to respect the ''Lost 
Cause" and to honor her great-hearted leaders. 



94 



CHAPTER IX 
WHERE STEEL IS KING 

A CITY OF SUPERLATIVES PITTSBURGH DEVELOPMENT 

— ARTISTIC BUILDINGS MAMMOTH INDUSTRIES THE 

SMOKY CITY. 

LIKE NEW YORK, Pittsburgh is a city of super- 
latives. Its sky-line is not so interesting; its rivers not 
so busy; but its skyscrapers and smokestacks are for- 
ever fascinating to the artist, and the products of its 
vast iron and steel industries are carried far and \vide 
throughout the earth. 

Pittsburgh lies in the midst of the most productive 
coal fields in the country, and the region is also rich in 
petroleum and natural gas. Factories extend for miles 
along the three rivers at the junction of which the city 
has grown up, and indeed far back into the tributary 
valleys, earning for it the nickname of "The Smoky 
City." Yet Pittsburgh is not without natural beauty, 
for all about it are picturesque rolling plateaus and the 
valleys of the rivers are narrow with high hills or pre- 
cipitous bluffs. The ugly and depressing flatness of the 
country surrounding Chicago are not here. 

Few Americans, except those living in Pittsburgh, know 
that the city is one of historic interest, owing its origin, 
indeed, to the strategic value of its site in the struggle 
between the English and the French for the possession 
of the North American continent. A few Frenchmen 

95 



WHERE STEEL IS KING 

attempted to establish a settlement here in 1731, but 
were soon driven away by the Indians. In 1753, after 
the French had laid formal claim to this region and the 
Ohio Land Company had been formed with a view to 
establishing a settlement within it, Robert Dinwiddle, 
governor of Virginia and a shareholder in the Ohio Com- 
pany, sent George Washington with a letter to "the 
commandant of the French forces on the Ohio" (then 
stationed at Fort Le Bceuf, near the present Waterford, 
about 115 miles north of the head-waters of that river) 
asking him to account for his invasion of territory claimed 
by the English. This was Washington's first important 
public service. He reached the present site of Pitts- 
burgh, November 24, 1753, and subsequently reported 
that what is now called "The Point," i.e. the tongue 
of land formed by the confluence of the Monongahela 
and Allegheny Rivers, was a much more favorable situa- 
tion for a fort and trading post than the one about two 
miles up the Monongahela (near the present site of 
McKees Rocks) which had been tentatively selected by 
the Ohio Company. Accordingly, on February 17, 1754, 
a detachment of about forty soldiers, under the com- 
mand of Captain William Trent, reached "The Point," 
and began to build a fortification which was the begin- 
ning of the permanent settlement here. 

PITTSBURGH DEVELOPMENT 

After the long succession of wars and massacres on that 
frontier had ceased, the village laid out around the fort 
grew, and business began developing — at first, boat- and 
vessel-building, and then smelting and coal mining and 
the manufacture of glass. In 1812 the first roUing-mill 
96 



WHERE STEEL IS KING 

started, and the war with England in that year caused 
the opening of a cannon foundry, which became the 
Fort Pitt Iron Works. The village of Fort Pitt had 
become Pittsburgh, and expanded vastly with the intro- 
duction of steam, and it became an extensive steamboat 
builder for the Western waters. Raihoad connections 
gave it renewed impetus; natural gas used as a manu- 
facturing fuel was a wonderful stimulant ; and the city now 
conducts an enormous trade with all parts of the world. 
This wonderful industrial development all came within 
the nineteenth century. There is still preserved as a 
relic of its origin the little block-house citadel of the old 
Fort Pitt, down near the point of the peninsula where 
the rivers join. This has been restored by the Daughters 
of the American Revolution — a small square building 
with a pyramidal roof. The surrounding stockade long 
ago disappeared. There is in the City Hall an inscribed 
tablet from Fort Pitt bearing the date 1764. The old 
building, which was the scene of Pittsburgh's earliest 
history, for it stands almost on the spot occupied by 
Fort Duquesne, is among modern mills and storehouses, 
about three hundred feet from the head of the Ohio. 

ARTISTIC BUILDINGS 

Pittsburgh, after an almost exclusive devotion to manu- 
facturing and business, began some years ago to cultivate 
artistic tastes in architecture, and has some very fine 
buildings. There is an elaborate Post-office and an 
interesting City Hall on Smithfield Street; but the 
finest building of all, and one of the best in the country, 
is the magnificent romanesque Court House, occupying 
a prominent position on a hill adjoining Fifth Avenue. 

7 97 



WHERE STEEL IS KING 

There is a massive jail of similar architecture, and a 
"Bridge of Sighs" comiects them, a beautifully designed 
arched and stone-covered bridge, thrown for a passage- 
way across an intervening street. There are attractive 
churches, banks and business buildings, and eastward from 
the city, near Schenley Park, is the beautiful Carnegie 
Library and Museum in Italian Renaissance, with a 
capacity for two hundred thousand volumes, a benefac- 
tion of Andrew Carnegie. The residential section is 
mainly on the hills east of Pittsburgh and across the 
Allegheny River in Allegheny City. 

MAMMOTH INDUSTRIES 

But the great Pittsburgh attraction is the multitude 
of factories that are its pride and create its prosperity. 
Some of these are among the greatest in the world — the 
Edgar Thomson Works and Homestead Works of the 
U. S. Steel Corporation, the Duquesne Steel Works, the 
Keystone Bridge Company, the Westinghouse Electric 
Company, and others. The Keystone Bridge Company 
works cover seven acres, and have made some of the 
greatest steel bridges in existence, and the Westinghouse 
Electric Company manufacture the greatest dynamos, 
including those of the Niagara Power Company. The 
production of pig-iron in the Pittsburgh district in 1912 
was ten million tons, and the production of steel eleven 
milhon, in each case about one-third of the total output^ 
in the United States. 

THE SMOKY CITY 

To look down from the hills upon the city's belching 
smokestacks and steam- jets and the lurid glow of its 



WHERE STEEL IS KING 

furnaces and to hear steam hissing, whistles screeching, 
bells ringing and forges and trip-hammers pounding, is to 
imagine a veritable pandemonium below. To many of 
the workers no doubt it is little less than that, but to the 
man who loves his city and admires the big things she is 
doing, it is very much more. 



CHAPTER X 
THE QUEEN OF THE GREAT LAKES 

CHICAGO, A CITY OF ENDLESS ENTERPRISE REALIZING 

IDEALS LAKE MICHIGAN AND ITS MOODS " THE 

loop" THE STOCKYARDS THE GREAT CENTRAL 

MARKET CHICAGO AS A SUMMER RESORT — ^A CITY 

AT PLAY A TWENTIETH-CENTURY UNIVERSITY THE 

CIVIC CENTj]R. 

HALF THE population of the country lives within one 
night's ride of Chicago, and the "Windy City" is before 
everything else a great market, the natural distributing 
point of the continent, the center of the country's 
sources of demand and supply. Here people from every 
state in the Union gather to buy and sell, and from here 
as a center the mighty railroads of America radiate. 
Situated at the head of the Great Lakes, Chicago has 
occupied a strategic position in the movement of water 
and rail commerce; within less than a century it has 
grown from a cluster of log cabins in the wilderness to a 
community of several millions (2,437,526, according to 
an estimate of January 1, 1915). 

"This will be the gate of empire, this the seat of com- 
merce," predicted La Salle in 1682. "Everything invites 
to action. The typical man who will grow up here must 
be an enterprising man. Each day as he rises he will 
exclaim, 'I act, I move, I push,' and there will be spread 
before him a boundless horizon, an illimitable field of 
activity. A limitless expanse of plain is here — to the 
100 




Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, A'. I'. 

Girdling the Earth with Steel. A steel beam, red-hot, drawn out 90 feet 
long in a huge steel mill in Pittsburgh. Steel rolled here may find its place as part 
of a skyscrapei- in the Babel of New York, be builded into the framework of a 
vessel in the shipyards of San Francisco, or help to construct a railroad into the 
heart of China. 



f"'""SSffi^r^ 




1"*. 






SB OiElSIlillliSOOlE!] 
lamaDlEEiSEIIlIilB 



".f-K 







QUEEN OF THE GREAT LAKES 

east water and all other points, land. If I were to give 
this place a name I would derive it from the nature of 
the man who will occupy this place — ago, I act; circunij 
all around — 'Circago.' " 

Whether the present name Chicago is, as is maintained 
in Gale's Reminiscences of Early Chicago, an Indian 
modification of La SaUe's '^Circago," or whether it owes 
its derivation to some other source, is a matter today of 
small concern, but certain it is that the city is a place 
of endless enterprise and achievement. 

REALIZING IDEALS 

And though it is the commercialism of Chicago that 
impresses the passing tourist more than anything else, 
Chicago is also a city of high civic ideals with a rich 
artistic and intellectual life and a spirit of open-minded- 
ness as boundless as the prairies upon which the bustling 
city miraculously arose. Social workers all over the 
country look to Jane Addams and Hull House for inspira- 
tion and method; students travel far to study in the 
great Art Institute, and municipalities everywhere exam- 
ine with interest the ^'Chicago Plan," which provides 
for the future growth of the city in an orderly and sys- 
tematic way. This plan is the realizable dream of a 
"City Beautiful," worked out by hard-headed business 
men and providing a solution of Chicago's problems of 
transportation, street congestion, recreation and public 
health. 

Even today Chicago has achieved big things in her 
civic life. She is known as the healthiest of all the 
large cities; she has the smallest public debt of any 
municipahty in the country; she has the best system of 

101 



QUEEN OF THE GREAT LAKES 

small parks and boulevards, and she has above all a 
firm faith in the future and a devotion to the needs of the 
coming generations that is little short of religious. 
Chicago has provided: 

"That what will come, and must come, shall come well." 
LAKE MICHIGAN AND ITS MOODS 

The traveler from the East where city streets are 
narrow and cluttered is impressed by the open spaces, 
trim boulevards and parks minus "Keep off the Grass" 
signs; the traveler from the West by the endless din 
and smoke and the general grajniess of the city. Both 
realize something of what Lake Michigan means to 
Chicago — cool breezes, healthful climate, unfailing water 
supply, and physical beauty. To be sure, railroad tracks 
now clutter the water's edge, but the City Plan includes 
the improvement of the lake front by the creation of a 
continuous park from Wilmette to Jackson Park, and 
even railroad tracks cannot spoil the beauty of the lake 
itself — ^blue, magically blue, when the sun shines, and 
like the ocean when the wind ruffles it into whitecaps 
and sends waves pounding in along the shore, and again 
all gray on cloudy days, lake and sky and city melting 
into a somber monochrome not without charm for him 
who has eyes to see it. 

"the loop" 

The South Side, the North Side, the West Side, and 
"the Loop" are all distinct sections of the city, and one 
must understand their meaning in order to understand 
conversation with a Chicagoan. The West Side com- 
prises all territory west of the north and south branches 
102 



QUEEN OF THE GREAT LAKES 

of the Chicago River and east of the north branch; 
the South Side all territory south of the Chicago River 
and east of the south branch. This embraces the Loop 
district, which, strictly speaking, is the territory within 
the Elevated Railway loop, but the term is in reality 
applied to the entire downtown business district, extend- 
ing from about Twelfth Street on the south to the Chicago 
River on the north, and from the south branch of the 
river on the west to Grant Park on the east. The inter- 
section of State and Madison Streets in this district is 
approximately the center of the shopping district, and is 
the most crowded street crossing, streams of pedestrians 
and vehicles passing in almost solid masses. 

THE STOCKYARDS 

On the South Side are the vast Union Stock Yards, 
the most spectacular of Chicago's industries, through 
which every year some eight million hogs, four million 
cattle, and four million sheep pass, over two-thirds of 
the hogs and cattle being killed in the yards and sent 
away in the form of meat. The whole annual traffic 
is valued at $250,000,000. The yards cover three 
hundred acres, and with the packing-houses employ 
about 25,000 men, and they have twenty miles of 
water-troughs and twenty-five miles of feeding-troughs, 
and are served by 250 miles of railway tracks. The 
Union Stock Yards make a complete town, with its 
own banks, hotels, board of trade, post-office, town-hall, 
newspaper and special fire department. The extensive 
inclosure is entered by a modest, gray sandstone tur- 
reted gateway, surmounted by a carved bull's head, 
emblematic of its uses. The Horse Market is a large 

103 



QUEEN OF THE GREAT LAKES 

pavilion, seating four thousand people. From this 
vast emporium, with its enormous packing-houses, are 
sent away the meat supplies that go all over the world, 
the product being carried out in long trains of canned 
goods and refrigerator cars, the most ingenious methods 
of cold storage being invented for and used in this widely 
extended industry. 

THE GREAT CENTRAL MARKET 

Chicago is the world's greatest grain and lumber as 
well as cattle market, and the natural metropolis of the 
Middle West. The active traffic of the grain and pro- 
vision trades is conducted in the building of the Board 
of Trade, a tall and imposing structure at the head of 
La Salle Street, making a fit close to the view along that 
grand highway. It is one of the most elaborate archi- 
tectural ornaments of the city, and its surmounting tower 
rises 322 feet from the pavement. The interior is a mag- 
nificent hall, lighted by high-reaching windows and 
surmounted by a central skylight. Upon the spacious 
floor, between nine and one o'clock, assemble the wheat 
and corn, and pork, lard, cattle and railway kings in a 
typical scene of concentrated and boiling energy, feeding 
the furnace in which Chicago's high-pressure business 
enterprise glows and roars. These speculative gladiators 
have their respective ''pits" or amphitheaters upon the 
floor, so that they gather in huge groups, around which 
hundreds run and jostle, and with their calls and shout- 
ing make a deafening uproar. Here fortunes are made 
and unmade, for the Board of Trade has been the scene 
of some of the wildest speculative excitement^ in the 
country. 
104 



QUEEN OF THE GREAT LAKES 

CHICAGO AS A SUMMER RESORT 

But for all its bustle Chicago is the coolest of the big 
cities and to many a visitor from the lakeless regions to 
the west and south it is a summer resort of endless 
charm. Nearly twenty-four miles of lake frontage, 
including some excellent bathing beaches, are within the 
city limits, and in all the larger parks there are artificial 
lakes for rowing and other sports. Boulevards con- 
necting the various parks tempt one to automobiling; 
pleasure steamers ply on the lake; and there are tennis 
courts, baseball fields and golf courses in many of the 
city pleasure grounds. For the more serious-minded 
summer visitor the University of Chicago, the Art Insti- 
tute, and other institutions offer the same opportunities 
for study as in the winter. 

A CITY AT PLAY 

The broad expanse of prairie upon which the city 
arose was low, level and treeless originally, but abundant 
trees have since been planted, and art has made little 
lakes and miniature hills, beautiful flower-gardens and 
abundant shrubbery, thus producing pleasure-grounds of 
rare attractions. Michigan Avenue and Drexel and 
Grand Boulevards, leading to the southern system of 
parks and the Lake Shore Drive on the north side of 
Chicago River, are the finest residential streets. The 
huge Auditorium fronting on Michigan Avenue includes 
a hotel and theater and is surmounted with a tower ris- 
ing 270 feet, giving a fine view over the city and lake. 
In front is Grant Park containing the Art Institute. 
Michigan Avenue begins at Chicago River beside the 
site of old Fort Dearborn, now obliterated, and it 

105 



QUEEN OF THE GREAT LAKES 

stretches far south, a tree-lined boulevard with beautiful 
residences. 

A TWENTIETH-CENTURY UNIVERSITY 

On the Midway Plaisance between Washington and 
Jackson Parks on the South Side is the University of 
Chicago, endowed by John D. Rockefeller, a great popu- 
lar institution, which many men and women all over 
the country honor as their Alma Mater. The Gothic 
buildings of gray limestone, built in quadrangles, are very 
pleasing and some of them very beautiful reproductions 
of famous English university structures. The Mitchell 
Tower, for instance, whose chimes, a memorial to Alice 
Freeman Palmer, lend so large a charm to the daily 
routine, is a reproduction of Magdalen Tower, Oxford, 
and the University Commons, Hutchinson Hall, a 
duplicate of Christ Church Hall, Oxford. There are 
faculties of arts, literature, science, divinity, medicine, 
law, education, and commerce and administration. The 
astronomical department, the famous Yerkes Observa- 
tory, is located at Williams Bay, Wisconsin. 

THE CIVIC CENTER 

The university is in many ways allied with the highest 
civic interests of the city and has given inspiration to 
many of its progressive reforms, among which the Chicago 
Plan has already been mentioned. A most interesting 
part of this plan is the conception of a civic center, to 
be established at the intersection of South Halsted 
and West Congress Streets, a location expected to be the 
center of population at that time. The center will 
include a group of beautiful city, county and federal 
106 



QUEEN OF THE GREAT LAKES 

buildings, and from here boulevards will radiate to the 
far corners of the city and to its outlying districts. 
Chicago is indeed building for the future — for a city of 
added millions and extended enterprise — for the Chicago 
of tomorrow. 



107 



CHAPTER XI 
IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE 

FLOEIDA OF ORANGE GROVES AND FLOWERS THE 

OLDEST CITY IN THE UNITED STATES THE AMERICAN 

RIVIERA MYSTERIOUS REGION OF THE EVERGLADES. 

TO THE winter tourist Florida spells springtime and 
flowers and sunny warm weather; for while the North 
and West are having zero temperature, while blizzards 
rage and railroads are blocked by snowdrifts, there are 
signs of summer's coming throughout Florida. "The 
flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of 
birds is come"; and orange blossoms are flinging their 
redolent perfume to the air. During mid-winter, indeed, 
the trucking fields are at their height of activity; straw- 
berries and oranges are being shipped out of the state; 
and in many places roses, poinsettias and hibiscus are 
putting forth their brilliant blooms. 

i 

THE OLDEST CITY IN THE UT^^ITED STATES 

Florida has the distinction of containing the oldest 
city in the United States, founded on the seacoast by 
Menendez in 1565, and still in many ways preserving the 
characteristics of a Spanish town of the sixteenth century. 
The permanent population of St. Augustine is very 
meager, but in winter thousands of visitors from the North 
flock to this ancient place in search of warm weather. 

The town is built on a level sandy plain, and the older 
108 




Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y. 

The Half-Way House. Cattle from the Western plains gathered in the Union 
Stockyards awaiting slaughter and subsequent shipment. The great Union 
Stockyards in Chicago are the largest live-stock market m the world. 



IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE 

streets are only a few feet wide and without sidewalks. 
The projecting balconies of some of the ancient houses 
almost touch those opposite. The old streets are paved 
with coquina and the old houses are built of it, a curious 
shell-limestone, quarried on Anastasia Island, that hard- 
ens upon exposure to the air. A few streets running 
north and south, crossed by others at right angles, and 
a broader front street bordered by the sea-wall which 
makes a fine promenade, compose the town. This sea- 
wall of coquina is capped with granite, and was built 
after the American occupation of the city. At its north- 
em end is Fort Marion and at the southern end St. 
Francis Barracks, the United States military post, so 
named because it occupies the site of the old Convent of 
St. Francis, having some of its coquina walls incorporated 
in the present structure. The harbor in front, which in 
past centuries sheltered so many Spanish fleets and those 
of Spanish enemies as weU, is now chiefly devoted to 
yachting. 

When Menendez and his Spaniards first landed they 
built a wooden fort commanding the harbor entrance, 
surrounded by pine trees, which they named San Juan 
de Pinos. This was afterwards replaced by Fort San 
Marco, constructed of coquina, which was nearly a hun- 
dred years building, and was finished in 1756. Upon 
the transfer of Florida to the United States this became 
Fort Marion. It is a well-preserved specimen of the 
mihtary architecture of the eighteenth century, built 
on Vauban's system, covering about four acres, with 
bastions at the corners, each protected by a watch-tower, 
and is surrounded by a moat. 

There are other quaint structures in this curious old 

109 



IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE 

town. A gray gateway about ten feet wide, flanked by 
tall square towers, marks the northern entrance to the 
city, the ditch from the fort passing in front of it. In 
one of the streets is the palace of the Spanish governors, 
since changed into a post-office. The official center of 
the city is a public square, the Plaza de la Constitucion. 
This square fronts on the sea-wall, and alongside it and 
stretching westward is the Alameda, known as King 
Street, leading to the group of grand hotels that have 
made modem St. Augustine so famous. These are the 
Ponce de Leon, the Alcazar and the Cordova, with the 
Casino, amid beautiful gardens. These buildings repro- 
duce types of Spanish-Moorish architecture, with many 
suggestions from the Alhambra. 

THE AMERICAN RIVIERA 

AH along the Atlantic shore of Florida south of St. 
Augustine are popular winter resorts, the most famous 
of which is Palm Beach. It is situated upon the 
narrow strip of land between the long and narrow 
lagoon of Lake Worth and the Atlantic Ocean and is 
reached by automobile from Jacksonville or by rail or 
through the East Coast Canal by boat. Here are the 
vast Hotel Royal Poinciana and the Palm Beach Inn, 
with their cocoanut groves, which also fringe for miles the 
pleasant shores of Lake Worth. Prolific vegetation and 
every charm that can add to this American Riviera bring a 
crowded winter population. Here grows the Poinciana, a 
tree bearing gorgeous flowers, and the two magnificent 
hotels are surrounded by an extensive tropical paradise, 
and connected by a wide avenue of palms a half-mile 
long, one house facing the lake and the other the ocean. 
110 



IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE 

MYSTERIOUS REGION OF THE EVERGLADES 

Off to the westward the distant horizon is bounded by 
the mysterious region of the Everglades, dismal haunts 
of the alligator and crocodile. The Everglades are 
really a lake, about eight thousand square miles in area, 
in which are numerous half -submerged islands. The 
floor of the lake is a limestone basin, extending from 
Lake Okechobee in the north to the extreme southern part 
of the state, and the lake varies in depth from one to 
twelve feet, its water being pure and clear. No streams 
empty into the Everglades, but the water-supply is 
furnished by springs and precipitation. There is a 
general southeasterly movement of the water. 

The soil of the islands is very fertile and is subject to 
frequent inundations, but gradually the water area is 
being replaced by land and the state is doing splendid 
work in reclaiming much of this waste area. The land 
reclaimed, moreover, has been found exceedingly fertile 
and particularly adapted to raising sugar-cane, oranges 
and garden truck. 

The vegetation in the Everglades is luxuriant, the live 
oak, wild lemon, wild orange, cucumber, papaw, custard 
apple and wild rubber trees being among the indigenous 
species; there are, besides, many varieties of wild flowers, 
including rare and lovely orchids. Systematic explora- 
tion has been prevented by the dense growth of saw grass, 
a kind of sedge, with sharp, saw-toothed leaves, which 
grows everywhere on the muck-covered rock basin and 
extends several feet above the shallow water. 



Ill 



CHAPTER Xil 
OF MARDI GRAS FAME 

THE NEW-OLD CITY OF NEW ORLEANS — LATIN GAY- 

ETY MARDI GRAS RELICS OF FRENCH DAYS THE 

ANCIENT CABILDO THE ST. LOUIS CATHEDRAL THE 

FRENCH MARKET HOTEL ROYAL THE FRENCH OPERA 

HOUSE THE PLACE PREPARED FOR NAPOLEON THE 

TWENTIETH CENTURY CITY. 

NEW ORLEANS, the new-old city which has given 
allegiance to four different flags and has still a charm- 
ing Latin atmosphere for all its modernity, is a place 
of unending interest, whether one loiters near a plash- 
ing fountain in one of the quaint walled gardens of the 
French Quarter or mingles with the crowd along the 
bustling levee besides the great Father of Waters. The 
city has in many respects become modernized, but 
modernism has not destroyed the French Opera, unique 
in America, the fascinating patios and courts or the 
ancient St. Louis Cathedral, fronting the Place d'Armes, 
where centered the social and religious life of the land 
that was an empire in itself and of the city whose his- 
tory has been written in blood. 

In enterprise New Orleans is American, but in spirit 
it is still largely Latin. The Spaniard, the Frenchman, 
the Mexican, the Cuban and the Central American in- 
herently understand this spirit, because it is a part of 
them. The American from other parts of the United 
States notes in New Orleans a different atmosphere, in 
112 



OF MARDI GRAS FAME 

which business sometimes pauses for pleasure and hap- 
piness is not subservient to money-getting. 

LATIN GAYETY 

The Carnival in New Orleans is not only marvelous 
for its richness and beauty, but it is a season when people 
of all classes enter into the spirit of fun and frolic, throw 
care to the winds, and yield themselves willing subjects 
to the gentle rule of ''King Rex." Parades that cost 
thousands of dollars are featured for several days; 
magnificent balls, where the social leaders and distin- 
guished people of all parts of the country assemble, and 
a great day when maskers claim the streets, make up the 
season, and give it a touch of splendor found nowhere 
else in the world. Thousands of strangers come to the 
city each year for the carnival and those who have par- 
ticipated in it once generally return to enjoy its pleasures 
again. 

The Carnival season properly begins twelve nights 
after Christmas with the ball of the ''Twelfth-night 
Revelers," and other exclusive organizations give their 
revels on stated nights until the Monday before Lent. On 
that Monday, King Rex arrives with royal magnificence 
on a big flotilla made up of war-ships and all types of 
river craft. He parades the streets in a golden car fol- 
lowed by soldiers, marines, blue-jackets and the lords 
and dukes of the realm in rich costume. The same 
night "Proteus" appears in the streets, coming out of 
the sea, with a brilliant pageant of from eighteen to 
twenty cars. Proteus concludes his parade with one 
of the great balls of the year at the French Opera 
House. 

8 113 



OF MARDI GRAS FAME 

MARDI GRAS 

The next day is Mardi Gras day — "Fat Tuesday" is 
the EngHsh of the name — and from early morning until 
dusk, maskers, who tax their ingenuity to find costumes 
striking and distinct, are in the streets. Rex's parade 
of dazzling cars is given Mardi Gras day and the maskers 
throw to the crowds in the streets souvenirs and trinkets. 
The day concludes with the pageant and ball of "Comus," 
and the pageant is generally one of the grandest of the 
season. At the ball at the French Opera House, Rex and 
Comus, with their beautiful queens, reign together. 

The Carnival has been celebrated in New Orleans 
since the early thirties, but the first parade was not 
given until 1837. Comus is the oldest of the present 
organizations and was formed in 1857. While the smaller 
organizations give no parades, their revels at the French 
Opera House are made up of gorgeous tableaux. The 
organizations are of a most secret character and the 
members of the Krewes work for months in preparing 
their subjects. Until the day of the parade and ball 
the subject for the display is not made public. 

RELICS OF FRENCH DAYS 

There is, in the older town, so much of characteristic 
French and Spanish survival, that New Orleans is a 
most interesting and picturesque city, though it has 
not very much to show in the way of elaborate archi- 
tecture. The streets have generally French or Spanish 
names, and there is a distinctive French Quarter inhab- 
ited by Creoles, where the buildings have walls of adob^ 
and stucco, inner courts, tiled roofs, arcades and bal- 
conies, the whole region being lavishly supplied with 
114 



OF MARDI GRAS FAME 

semi-tropical plants. The chief business thoroughfare, 
Canal Street, is at right-angles to the river bank, and 
borders the French Quarter. 

As the visitor wanders through Royal, Dauphine and 
Bourbon streets, and other thoroughfares of the ''Vieux 
Carre," he notices a style of architecture with which he 
is entirely unfamiliar unless he has spent some of his 
time in the cities and towns of France and Spain. 

Jackson Square, laid out by Bienville in 1720 and 
known as the "Place d'Armes," has been closely identi- 
fied with the history of the city for nearly two hundred 
years, and one of the most romantic incidents connected 
with it was the reception given the Acadians who were 
driven out of Canada by the British. General Jackson 
was welcom^ed in the square after his victory over the 
British at Chalmette and conducted into the cathedral 
to the solemn Te Deum. The square was beautified 
fii'st by Mme. Pontalba, daughter of Don Almonaster, 
who had it laid out French style. In 1846 the mag- 
nificent equestrian statue of General Andrew Jackson 
was placed in the square and the name changed to 
Jackson Square. Two long rows of three-story brick 
buildings were erected on cither side the square by 
Mme. Pontalba in 1849. Her monogram is still intact 
on the iron railings. These buildings were once the 
home of fashionables, but today they house for the most 
part foreigners of the lower class. In the central building 
in St. Peter Street Jenn}^ Lind hved. 

THE ANCIENT CABILDO 

The Cabildo, opposite Jackson Square, was erected by 
Don Almonaster in 1795 and its history reads like a 

115 



OF MARDI GRAS FAME 

romance. It was the old Spanish court-house in the 
colonial days and there were many stirring dramas 
enacted in this building, but the only rehc of medieval 
justice still preserved is the heavy set of iron-bound 
stocks. The transfer of Louisiana from Spain to France 
and from France to the United States took place in this 
building, and the spot where the officials stood is marked 
by a big brass plate. 

THE ST. LOUIS CATHEDRAL 

The St. Louis Cathedral, next to the Cabildo, ranks as 
one of the best-known churches in the United States. 
The site was selected by Bienville for a cathedral when 
the city was laid out in 1718, but it was not until 1724 
that the first brick church was built. The church was 
destroyed in the fire of 1788 and in 1794 the present 
structure was built by Don Almonaster, previously men- 
tioned as the donor of a chapel to the Ursuline nuns. 
The church was repaired and added to from time to time 
and is today firm and substantial. Don Almonaster is 
buried in a crypt under the altar. Other distinguished 
Frenchmen and Spaniards rest in the crypt and the 
slabs bearing the names of the dead are plainly to be 
seen in front of the altar rail. In the rear of the cathe- 
dral is a small garden in which many duels were fought 
in colonial times. 

THE FRENCH MARKET 

The French Market is just off Jackson Square and 
extends down to Barracks Street. The first market was 
erected on this site by the Spaniards in 1791 and remained 
intact until 1812 when it was destroyed by a hurricane. 
116 



OF MARDI GRAS FAME 

The old structure was replaced by the present meat 
market in 1813. In 1822 the vegetable market was 
added and the Bazaar market was not erected until 
1872. In the rear of the French Market and extending 
back several squares and taking in the area from St. Ann 
to Barracks Street is what is known as Little Italy. 
Thousands of Italians live in this section of the city and 
some of the tall dingy tenements have been the scenes 
of bloody Mafia crimes and Black-hand assassinations. 

HOTEL ROYAL 

The next point of interest is the Hotel Royal, first 
known as the St. Louis Hotel. It was erected in the 
early thirties and for many years was the leading hotel 
of the South, later becoming the Capitol, and again 
assuming its early character of hotel. The building is 
now falling into ruins and is occupied by poor families. 
Like many other venerable buildings in the city of 
ancient houses, the Hotel Royal has its weird ghost story. 
Henry Clay was entertained in the Hotel^Royal in 1843, 
and the supper alone, which was served on gold plates, 
cost $20,000. In the rotunda of the hotel is the old 
slave block where negroes were once auctioned to the 
highest bidder. 

THE FRENCH OPERA HOUSE 

Bourbon Street has its famous buildings and the first 
of these structures that attracts attention is the "Old 
Absinthe House," built in 1798, and used as a cafe since 
1825. Next comes the French Opera House known the 
world over. In this theater many world singers have 
been heard, among them Adelina Patti, who was once a 

117 



OF MARDI GRAS FAME 

member of the company performing there, playing a 
very small part. 

There are old buildings, some of them with fascinating 
courtyards, for a considerable distance dowTi Bourbon 
Street, and in St. Peter Street, just off Bourbon, stood 
Tabars^'s theater, opened for its first performance in 1791. 

THE PLACE PREPARED FOR NAPOLEON 

All along Chartres Street are buildings with interesting 
histories, among them the old Orleans Hotel, built in 
1799, and the Strangers' Hotel, erected a few years later. 
At 514 Chartres Street the story of the attempt to rescue 
Napoleon from St. Helena is still told by the concierge. 
It was the home of Girod, a wealthy merchant, who, with 
Dominic You, one of Lafitte's pirates, planned to make 
a sudden dash on St. Helena with a swift yacht and 
bear the imprisoned emperor to liberty. Girod fitted 
the house up magnificently to serve as the Emperor's 
home. The plot fell through when a sailing ship brought 
the news of the Little Corporal's death in 1821. 

THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY CITY 

But New Orleans has many things to recommend it 
to the tourist besides its picturesque French Quarter. 
In the first place, it is a modern city with every con- 
venience and improvement — a part of the progressive 
tw^entieth century. It has magnificent hotels with 
charges graded to meet any purse; its restaurants rank 
among the finest in the w^orld; it has smooth-paved 
streets, inviting driveways and beautiful parks, and one 
of the most up-to-date street car systems in the country. 

The new city is of course above Canal Street, and the 
118 



OF MARDI GRAS FAME 

great jobbing center is in Canal Street, while the whole- 
sale district includes nearly all the streets close to the 
river from Canal to Julia Streets. In this district there 
are a number of big manufacturing plants. The office- 
building section from Camp to Baronne Streets is dotted 
with tall sky-scrapers and modern structures. In this 
section are located the Cotton Exchange, Stock Ex- 
change, Board of Trade, Contractors' Exchange, Real 
Estate Exchange and most of the banks. The Sugar 
Exchange is below Canal Street close to the levee, where 
the sugar is landed at the publicly-o\ATied docks. 

New Orleans is the greatest sugar market and also 
one of the greatest rice and coffee markets, and the docks 
are always lined with ships discharging and taking on 
cargoes. Steamships to every port in the Atlantic call 
here, and to Panama, Central America and Mexico it is 
the way. 



119 



CHAPTER XIII 

AMONG THE COTTON FIELDS 

atlanta, the metropolis of the southeast — 
civil war memories — " marching through 
Georgia" — the city today — snowy fields of 

COTTON. 

THE COMMERCIAL center of the Southeast and the 
entrepot of vast cotton industries, Atlanta and the 
Chattahoochee which runs by its dooryard are still not 
without picturesque interest. The Chattahoochee was 
the Indian "river of the pictured rocks." Its head- 
streams are in the Blue Ridge in northeastern Georgia, 
and flowing southwest and afterwards south, it forms 
the western boundary of the state. Then uniting with 
the Flint River, the two make the Appalachicola, which, 
crossing Florida, empties into the Gulf. The Chatta- 
hoochee in its course passes about seven miles from 
the Georgia capital, Atlanta, the ''Gate City," and the 
chief Southern railway center. The city is situated on 
a hilly surface, elevated a thousand feet above the sea, 
and is laid out in the form of a circle around the Union 
Passenger Depot, which is the central point. The first 
house was built at this place in 1836, on an Indian trail 
to the crossing of the Chattahoochee, whither a railroad 
was projected, and for several years it was called, for 
this reason, Terminus, being afterwards incorporated as 
the town of MarthasviUe, named after the Georgia Gover- 
120 



AMONG THE COTTON FIELDS 

nor Lumpkin's daughter. In 1845, the first railroads 
were constructed connecting it with the seaboard, and 
it soon became a tobacco and cotton mart, growing 
rapidly, and in 1847 being incorporated as the city of 
Atlanta, having about 2500 people. 

CIVIL WAE MEMORIES 

During the Civil War Atlanta was a leading center of 
supplies, and the geographical position of the city made it 
of vital importance to the Confederacy. General Sher- 
man, in his advance southward from Chattanooga in 
the spring and early summer of 1864, steadily fought and 
outflanked the Confederates, until in July they fell back 
behind the Chattahoochee and took a line covering 
Atlanta. General Hood assumed command on July 17. 
Sherman crossed the Chattahoochee and then Hood 
retired to the intrenchments around the city. For 
several weeks there were maneuvers and battles around 
Atlanta, until near the end of August, when Sherman 
had got behind the city, cutting the railways supplying it. 
On the night of September 1, Hood evacuated Atlanta, 
and the next day Sherman entered. 

'^ MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA" 

This capture sealed the doom of the Confederacy, 
although there were subsequent battles and movements 
around Atlanta until November. Then Sherman, rein- 
forcing General Thomas at Nashville, and leaving him to 
take care of Hood, ran back all the surplus property and 
supplies to Chattanooga, broke up the railway, cut the 
telegraph behind him, burned Atlanta, and on November 
15 started on his famous ''March to the Sea," to cut the 

121 



AMONG THE COTTON FIELDS 

Confederacy in two, capturing Savannah in December. 
The destruction of Atlanta was almost complete. 

THE CITY TODAY 

After peace came, however, the restoration of Atlanta 
v/as rapid and thorough, and it is now one of the most 
progressive and wealthy Southern cities. It is a rail- 
road center from which fifteen lines radiate, and the 
United States government has recognized the city's 
inportance and accessiblity by establishing a regional 
bank here. There is no part of the South Atlantic or 
Gulf coasts which can not be reached by rail from 
Atlanta in eighteen hours and for this reason General 
Sherman declared that Atlanta would always be a stra- 
tegic point in war and a commanding center in times of 
peace. 

SNOWY FIELDS OF COTTON 

Atlanta is the center of a vast cotton trade, for cotton 
is the staple agricultural product of Georgia. The vast 
cotton fields of the state are a beautiful and interesting 
sight, especially when there are Negro pickers on the 
ground — ''studies in black and white." Cotton-picking 
is at once the most difficult and most expensive operation 
in cotton production, although the work is light and is 
effectually performed by women and even children as 
weU as by men. It is paid for at the rate of from forty- 
five to fifty cents per hundred pounds, and the picking 
season averages a hundred days. Great efforts have 
been made to devise cotton-picking machines, but with 
no great success as yet. 



122 



CHAPTER XIV 
A TRIP TO PANAMA 

FIRST DREAMS OF A CANAL — THE UNITED STATES TO 
THE RESCUE — GIGANTIC OBSTACLES — MEETING ALL 
EMERGENCIES — A BATTLE WON. 

AMERICA has captured the forces of Nature, harnessed 
the floods and made the desert bloom, builded gigantic 
bridges and arrogant skyscrapers and bored roadways 
through solid rock and beneath water, but the most 
spectacular of all spectacular accomphshments is the 
Panama Canal. 

Some four centuries ago, Balboa, the intrepid, the 
persevering, led his little band of adventurers across the 
Isthmus of Darien, as it was then called, and leaving 
their protection, gave reign to his impatience by going 
on ahead and climbing alone, slowly and painfully, the 
continental divide, from which vantage point he dis- 
covered the world's largest ocean. 

We are told that, later, gathering his followers, he 
walked out into the surf and with his sword in his right 
hand and the banner of Castile in his left gave the vast 
expanse of water its present name and claimed all the 
land washed by its waves as the lawful property of the 
proud country to which he owed allegiance. 

The narrowness of the Isthmus naturally suggested 
the cutting of a waterway through it. It interposed 
between Atlantic and Pacific a barrier in places less than 

123 



A TRIP TO PANAMA 



fifty miles wide. To sail from Colon to Panama — forty- 
five miles as the bird flies — ^required a voyage around 
Cape Horn — some ten thousand miles. Yet it was 
nearly four centuries before any actual effort was made 
to construct such a canal. 

In 1876 an organization was perfected in France for 
making surveys and collecting data on which to base 
the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, 
and in 1878 a concession for prosecuting the work was 
secured from the Colombian Government. In May, 
1879, an international congress was convened, under 
the auspices of Ferdinand de Lesseps, to consider the 
question of the best location and plan of the canal. 

The Panama Canal Company was organized, with 
Ferdinand de Lesseps as its president, and the stock of 
this company was successfully floated in December, 1880. 
The two years following were devoted largely to surveys, 
examinations and preliminary work. In 1889 the com- 
pany went into bankruptcy, and operations were sus- 
pended until the new Panama Canal Company was 
organized in 1894. 

THE UNITED STATES TO THE RESCUE 

The United States, not unmindful of the advantages 
of an Isthmian Canal, had from time to time made sur- 
veys of the various routes. With a view to government 
ownership and control. Congress directed an investiga- 
tion, with the result that the Commission reported on 
November 16, 1901, in favor of Panama and recom- 
mended the lock type of canal, appraising the value of 
the rights, franchises, concessions, lands, unfinished work, 
plans and other property, including the railroad of the 
124 



A TRIP TO PANAMA 



new Panama Canal Company, at $40,000,000. An act 
of Congress approved June 28, 1902, authorized the 
President of the United States to acquire this property 
at this figure, and also to secure from the Republic of 
Colombia perpetual control of a strip of land not less 
than six miles wide across the Isthmus and the right to 
excavate, construct and operate and protect thereon a 
canal of such depth and capacity as would afford con- 
venient passage of the largest ships now in use or as may 
be reasonably anticipated. 

Later on a treaty was made with the Republic of 
Panama whereby the United States was granted control 
of a ten-mile strip constituting the Canal Zone. This 
was ratified by the Republic of Panama on December 2, 
1903, and by the United States on February 23, 1904. On 
May 4, 1904, work was begun under United States control. 

THE GREAT CANAL 

The Isthmus of Panama runs east and west and the 
canal traverses it from Colon on the north to Panama 
on the south in a general direction from northwest to 
southeast, the Pacific terminus being twenty-two miles 
east of the Atlantic entrance. The principal features of 
the canal are a sea-level entrance channel from the east 
through Limon Bay to Gatun, about seven miles long, 
five-hundred-foot bottom width and forty-one-foot depth 
at mean tide. At Gatun the eighty-five foot lake level is 
obtained by a dam across the valley. The lake is con- 
fined on the Pacific side by a dam between the hills at 
Pedro Miguel, thirty-two miles away. The lake thus 
formed has an area of 164 square miles and a channel 
depth of not less than forty-five feet at normal stage. 

125 



A TRIP TO PANAMA 



At Gatun ships pass from the sea to the lake level, 
and vice versa, by three locks in flight. On the Pacific 
side there is one lowering of thirty feet at Pedro 
Miguel to a small lake fifty-five feet above sea level, 
held by dam at Miraflores, where two lowerings over- 
come the difference of level to the sea. The channel 
between the locks on the Pacific side is five hundred 
feet wide at the bottom and forty-five feet deep, and 
below the Miraflores locks the sea-level section, about 
eight miles in length, is five hundred feet wide at the 
bottom and forty-five feet deep at mean tide. Through 
the lake the bottom widths are not less than one thousand 
feet for about sixteen miles, eight hundred feet for about 
four miles, five hundred feet for about three miles, and 
through the continental divide from Bas Obispo to Pedro 
Miguel, a distance of about nine miles, the bottom 
width is three hundred feet. The total length of the 
canal from deep water in the Caribbean, forty-one-foot 
depth at mean tide to deep water in the Pacific, forty- 
five-foot depth at mean tide, is practically fifty miles, 
fifteen miles of which are at sea level. 

GIGANTIC OBSTACLES 

The greatest difficulty encountered in the excavation 
of the canal was due to slides and breaks which caused 
large masses of material to slide or move into the exca- 
vated area, closing off the drainage, upsetting steam 
shovels and tearing up the tracks. The greatest slide 
was at Cucaracha, and gave trouble when the French 
first began cutting in 1884. Though at first confined 
to a length of eight hundred feet, the slide extended to 
include the entire basin south of Gold Hill, or a length 
126 



A TRIP TO PANAMA 



of about three thousand feet. Some idea of the magni- 
tude of these sHdes can be obtained from the fact that 
during the fiscal year 1910 of 14,921,750 cubic yards 
that were removed 2,649,000 cubic yards, or eighteen 
per cent, were from slides or breaks that had previously 
existed or that had developed during the year. 

The one greatest undertaking of the whole excavation 
was the Culebra cut. Work had been in progress on this 
since 1880, and during the French control over 20,000,000 
cubic yards were removed. On May 4, 1904, when the 
United States took charge, it was estimated that there 
was left to excavate 150,000,000 cubic yards. Some idea 
of the size of this big cut may be formed from the fact 
that this division has within its jurisdiction over two 
hundred miles of five-foot-gage track laid, about fifty- 
five miles of which is within the side slopes of the Culebra 
cut alone. 

GATUN DAM 

The great dam at Gatun is a veritable hill — 7,500 feet 
over all, 2,100 feet wide at the base, 398 feet through at 
the water surface, and one hundred feet wide at the top, 
which is 115 feet above sea level. The dimensions of the 
dam are such as to assure that ample provision is made 
against every force which may affect its safety, and 
while it is made of dirt, a thing before unheard of, it is 
of such vast proportions that it is as strong and firm as 
the everlasting hills themselves. 

Fluctuations in the lake due to floods are controlled 
by an immense spillway dam built of concrete. The 
front of the dam is the arc of a circle 740 feet long with 
fourteen openings which, when the gates are raised to 

127 



A TRIP TO PANAMA 



the full height, permit a discharge of 140,000 cubic feet 
per second. The water thus discharged passes through a 
diversion channel in the old bed of the Chagres River, 
generating, by an enormous electric plant, the power 
necessary for operating the locks. 

The locks of the canal are in pairs, so that if any lock 
is out of service navigation will not be interrupted; also, 
when all the locks are in use the passage of shipping is 
expedited by using one set of locks for the ascent and 
the other for descent. These locks are 110 feet wide and 
have usable lengths of one thousand feet. The system 
of filling adopted consists of a culvert in each side wall 
feeding laterals perpendicular to the access of the lock, 
from which are openings upward into the lock chamber. 
The entire lock can be filled or emptied in fifteen minutes 
and forty-two seconds when one culvert is used and 
seven minutes and fifty-one seconds using both culverts. 
It requires about ten hours for a large ship to make the 
entire trip through the canal. 

MEETING ALL EMERGENCIES 

Many extraordinary feats of engineering were accom- 
phshed to overcome the difficulties presented. Special 
contrivances, wonderful in their operation, were invented 
to meet exigencies and emergencies. 

The first and greatest problem attempted by the 
United States was to make the Canal Zone healthful. 
This strip of land from ocean to ocean abounded in 
disease-breeding swamps and filthy habitations unfit for 
human beings. The death-rate was appalling and the 
labor conditions terrible. During the first two and a 
half years, therefore, all energies were devoted to ridding 
128 




Uncle Sam's Ek. \\ ohk ai Panamx. A l)inl's-c\c view of the Kreat canal 
showing how the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are'here joined. 



A TRIP TO PANAMA 



the Isthmus of disease by sanitation, to recruiting and 
organizing a working force and providing for it suitable 
houses, hotels, messes, kitchens and an adequate food 
supply. This work included clearing lands, draining 
and filling pools and swamps for the extermination of the 
mosquito, the establishment of hospitals for the care of 
the sick and injured and the building of suitable quaran- 
tine quarters. Municipal improvements were under- 
taken in Panama and Colon and the various settlements 
in the Canal Zone, such as the construction of reservoirs, 
pavements and a system of modern roads. Over two 
thousand buildings were constructed besides the remod- 
eling of fifteen hundred buildings turned over by the 
French company. 

It was only after all this preliminary sanitation was 
accomphshed that the real work of digging the canal 
could go forward with any hope of success. These 
hygienic conditions had the result of making the Canal 
Zone one of the most healthful spots in the world and 
work on the canal became so popular that it was no 
longer necessary to enlist recruits from the West Indies, 
the good pay, fair treatment and excellent living condi- 
tions bringing thousands of laborers from Spain and Italy. 
The greatest number employed at any one time was 
45,000, of which five thousand were Americans. 

A BATTLE WON 

The completion of this herculean task marked an epoch 
in the history of the world. A gigantic battle against 
floods and torrents, pestilence and swamps, tropical 
rivers, jungles and rock-ribbed mountains had been 
fought — and won! Well worthy a place in the halls of 

9 129 



A TRIP TO PANAMA 



immortal fame are the names of the thousands of sturdy 
sons who with ingenuity, pluck and perseverance never 
before equaled succeeded in making a pathway for the 
nations of the world from ocean to ocean. 

This great and daring undertaking, which had for its 
object the opening up of new trade routes and lines of 
commerce, annihilating distance and wiping out the 
width of two continents between New York and Yoko- 
hama and making the Atlantic seaboard and the Pacific 
Coast close neighbors, is the climax of man's achieve- 
ment and the greatest gift to civilization. It will help 
in the consummation of man's loftiest dreams of world 
friendship and world peace. 



130 



CHAPTER XV 

THE CRADLE OF TEXAS LIBERTY 

Remnant of Spanish days — the siege of the 
alamo — san antonio of the mexicans — cowboy 
land — a growing city. 

EIGHTY MILES southwest of Austin is the ancient 
city of San Antonio, known as the ''cradle of Texas 
hberty," a Spanish town upon the San Antonio and 
San Pedro Rivers, small streams dividing it into irreg- 
ular parts, the former receiving the latter and flowing 
into the Gulf at Espiritu Santo Bay. 

The Spaniards penetrated into this region in the 
latter part of the seventeenth century and established 
one of their usual joint reHgious-military posts among the 
Indians upon the plan of colonization then in vogue. The 
Presidio or mihtary station was called San Antonio de 
Bexar, while during the early eighteenth century there 
were founded various religious missions, the chief being by 
Franciscan monks, the Mission of San Antonio de Valero. 
There are four other missions in and near the city, dat- 
ing from that early period, their ancient buildings partly 
restored, but some of them also considerably in ruins. 
To the eastward of San Antonio River was built 
in a grove of the alamo or cottonwood trees in 
1744 a low, strong, thick-walled church of adobe 
for the Franciscans, called from its surroundings, the 
Alamo. 
131 



CRADLE OF TEXAS LIBERTY 

THE SIEGE OF THE ALAMO 

When the Texans revolted, they held San Antonio as 
an outpost with a garrison of 145 men, commanded by 
Colonel James Bowie, the famous duelist and inventor 
of the ^'bowie knife," who was originallj^ from Louisiana. 
Bowie fell ill of typhoid fever, and Colonel Travis took 
command. Among the garrison was the eccentric David 
Crockett of Tennessee, who had been a member of Con- 
gress, and joined them as a volunteer. General Santa 
Anna marched with a large Mexican army against them, 
arriving February 22, 1836, and the little garrison retired 
within the church of the Alamo, which they defended 
against four* thousand Mexicans in a twelve days' siege. 
The final assault was made at dayhght, March 6, a 
lodgment was effected, and until nine o'clock a battle 
was fought from room to room within the church, a 
desperate hand-to-hand conflict at short range, not 
ceasing until every Texan was killed and 2,300 Mexicans 
had fallen. Upon the memorial of this terrible contest, 
at the Texas State Capitol, is the inscription: 

" Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat, but the Alamo 
had none." 

The modern San Antonio has a charm peculiarly its 
own. It is unhke the average American city of a hun- 
dred thousand people. Originally an old Spanish town, 
its winding streets are still rich in semi-tropical beauty, 
filled with deep, sharp shadows as reminiscent of Spain 
as are the quaint and lovely missions that line the Con- 
cepcion Road. The palm, the pomegranate, the crepe 
myrtle, the stately century plant, the huisache, retama 
132 




MoRv PicTURESOUE TH^N BEAUTIFUL. The Apaches, formerly one of the most power- 
M and SrSf the Indian tribes, are now confined to reservations m Arizona and 
New Mexico. - 



CRADLE OF TEXAS LIBERTY 

trees, giant live oak and pecans grow here, and sprinkled 
like emeralds through the city are plazas verdant with 
palms and ligustrums and flowers that bloom all winter 
long. 

SAN ANTONIO OF THE MEXICANS 

Old Spain has given way to Mexico today, and it is 
indeed impossible to think of San Antonio of the Amer- 
icans without thinking of the San Antonio of the Mexi- 
cans, a hotbed of Mexican intrigue, with its "Revolu- 
tionary Row," its International Club, and its eternal 
talk of war. There are Mexicans of all classes on 
the streets, from the sun-browned men who peddle 
confections and hot tamales to the delicate women of 
higher birth who have been transported out of the 
tinder-box of Mexico into the haven of San Antonio, 
floating its blessed American flag. 

COWBOY LAND 

On the southern border of San Antonio are the exten- 
sive Fair Grounds, where Roosevelt's Rough Riders, 
largely recruited from the neighboring Texas ranches, 
were organized for the Spanish War in 1898. The most 
extensive Texas cattle ranches are south and west of 
San Antonio, the largest of them. King's Ranch, near 
the GuK to the southward, covering 700,000 acres, and 
stocked with three thousand brood mares and a hun- 
dred thousand cattle. 

A GROWING CITY 

San Antonio is much more than a hotbed of insur- 
rection and a center for the cattle country, however, for 

133 



CRADLE OF TEXAS LIBERTY 

the city is growing in industry and prestige, and is at 
present engaged in a comprehensive plan of public 
improvements. It is the distributing center for a large 
territory; has growing jobbing and manufacturing in- 
dustries including large brewery interests built up by 
the German population, which is not inconsiderable; 
and is also a tourist center and charming winter resort. 
But insist as the citizen of San Antonio will that it 
is a big and coming city, it is the San Antonio of the 
past that we who visit love and wish to see unchanged 
down through the years — the city of crumbling Spanish 
architecture, the San Antonio of the Alamo, of loitering 
pedestrians, of intrigue and mystery, and of waihng, 
haunting, deHcious Mexican music, a city unlike any 
other in the United States. 



134 



CHAPTER XVI 
MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN THE SAHARA 

ROMANCE OF THE SOUTHWEST ^ANCIENT SANTA FE 

INDIAN PUEBLOS — THE PETRIFIED FOREST — AZTEC 

RUINS AND HIEROGLYPHICS — THE PAINTED DESERT. 

THERE IS NO country in aU America so fuU of roman- 
tic interest as the great Southwest, a land of prodigious 
mountain terraces, extensive plateaus, profound canyons, 
and flat, arid plains, dotted with gardens of fruits and 
flowers, patched with vast tracts of pine timber, and 
veined with precious stones and metals, alternating with 
desolate beds of lava, bald mountainous cones of black 
and red volcanic cinder, grass-carpeted parks, uncouth 
vegetable growths of the desert, and bleak rock spires, 
above all which white peaks gleam radiantly in almost 
perpetual sunlight. The residents of this region are 
unable to shake off its charm, even when no longer com- 
pelled by any other consideration to remain, and the 
traveler finds it a novel environment for contempora- 
neous American hfe, this land of sage and mesquite, of 
shadowed canyons, lofty mesas and painted buttes. Its 
cliffs are flung in broad, sinuous lines that approach and 
recede from the way, their contour incessantly shifting in 
the similitude of caverns, corridors, pyramids, monuments, 
and a thousand other forms so full of structural idea that 
they seem to be the unfinished work of some giant archi- 
tect who had planned more than he could execute. 

135 



MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SAHARA 

The altitude of the raih-oad route through New Mexico 
and Arizona undulates between 5,000 and 7,000 feet 
above sea-level, until on the western border of Arizona 
the high plateaus break rapidly down to an elevation of 
less than 500 feet at the valley of a broad and capricious 
stream that flows through alternate stretches of rich 
alluvial meadow and barren rock-spires — obelisks rising 
against the sky. This stream is the Colorado River, 
wayward, strenuous, possessed of creative imagination 
and terrific energy when the mood is on. It chiseled 
the Grand Canyon, far to the north and east, and now 
complacently saunters ocean ward. 

The landscape is oriental in aspect and flushed with 
color. Nowhere else can you find sky of deeper blue, 
sunlight more dazzling, shadows more intense, clouds 
more luminously white, or stars that throb with redder 
fire. Here the pure rarefied air that is associated in the 
mind with arduous mountain climbing is the only air 
known — dry, cool and gently stimulating. Through it, 
as through a crystal, the rich red of the soil, the green of 
vegetation, and the varied tints of the rocks gleam always 
freshly on the sight. 

One is borne past pictui^esque desert tracts spotted 
with sage, and past mesas, buttes, dead volcanoes and 
lava beds. These last are in a region where you will see 
not only mountain craters, with long basaltic slopes 
that were the ancient flow of molten rock, but dikes as 
weU; fissures in the level plain through which the black 
lava oozed and ran for many miles. These vast rivers 
of rock, cracked, piled, scattered in blocks, and in places 
overgrown with chaparral, are full of interest, even to the 
accustomed eye. They wear an appearance of newness, 
136 



MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SAHARA 

moreover, as if the volcanic action were of recent date; 
but there has been found nothing in native tradition that 
has any bearing upon them. Doubtless they are many 
centuries old. 

ANCIENT SANTA FE 

In this storied country, among scenic surroundings 
that reminded them of their Iberian home, the Spaniards 
built their City of the Holy Faith. Santa Fe was already 
well estabhshed when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, 
for about 1606, the annals say, Juan de Oiiate, one of 
the Spanish conquistadores, founded his capital here on 
the site of the ruins of two small Indian pueblos. Every 
stranger visits the venerable shrine of San Miguel — a 
reminder of days of holy zeal and self-sacrificing stress. 
Inside of the church, which was partly burned during 
the Pueblo revolution of 1680 and restored in 1710 (as 
the inscription on one of the vigas just inside the ancient 
door details), is found a bell, cast in Spain more than a 
century before the discovery of America. The altar 
paintings lay claim to even greater age. 

The Old Palace that faces the shady Plaza is another 
historic structure. Its massive walls are three hundred 
years old. They have withstood the ravages of time 
remarkably well. Recent repairs have revealed walls 
that antedate the Spanish construction — undoubtedly 
the remains of an ancient Indian ruin. Here have taken 
place historic gatherings innumerable. It has been 
occupied by a succession of almost one hundred governors 
— Spanish, Pueblo, Mexican and American — beginning 
before 1620 and ending with Governor George Curry in 
1909. Some of these held sway over a region larger 

137 



MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SAHARA 

than Germany or the original thirteen states. Here is 
the room in which Lew Wallace, when Governor of New 
Mexico, wrote a part of his great novel, Ben Hur. The 
New Mexico Historical Society has occupied the east 
end of the building for many years; it has a free museum 
filled with a varied collection of relics which speak 
eloquently of New Mexico's eventful past. The west 
end is the home of the Museum of New Mexico and the 
School of American Archaeology, with its fascinating 
exhibits of specimens unearthed in the rich fields sur- 
rounding Santa Fe, whose ancient civilization succeeded 
one that was far more ancient. 

The church of San Miguel, the Old Palace, the Old 
House where Coronado was said to have lodged in 1540, 
and other ancient shrines are not distinguishable from 
their surroundings by any air of superior age. All is 
old, a petrifaction of medieval human life done in adobe. 
There is a modern Santa Fe, to be sure, with commercial 
intents and purposes, but it is the straggling aggregation 
of low adobe huts that one remembers. 

INDIAN PUEBLOS 

Santa Fe is in the land of the pueblos. Taos, Picuris, 
San Juan, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Pojoaque, Nambe 
and Teseque are within twenty to ninety-five miles of 
the city, many-chambered communal homes with popu- 
lations varying from twenty-five to four hundred persons. 
From Domingo one may reach the pueblos of Cochiti, 
San Domingo and San Fehpe, while Sandia, Jemez, Zia 
and Santa Ana are in the vicinity of Albuquerque. Few 
tourists know that the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico 
own 900,000 acres of land, and that since the treaty of 
13a 



MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SAHARA 

Guadeloupe Hidalgo in 1848 they have been full-fledged 
United States citizens, though not voting, and main- 
taining their own forms of government. Three of the 
most important pueblos are Isleta, Laguna, and Acoma. 
Isleta is within a stone's throw of the railroad; Laguna 
station now is located about two miles west of the Indian 
settlement, the railroad track having been moved a 
considerable distance north; Acoma is reached from 
Laguna or Cubero by a drive of fifteen miles. 

The aboriginal inhabitants of the pueblos, an intelli- 
gent, complex, industrious and independent race, are 
housed today in the self-same structures in which their 
forebears were discovered, and in three and a half cen- 
turies of contact with Europeans their manner of life 
has not materially changed. The Indian tribes that 
roamed over mountain and plain have become wards of 
the government; but the Pueblo Indian has absolutely 
maintained the integrity of his individuality, self-respect- 
ing and self-sufficient. The extent to which he has 
adopted the religion of his Spanish conquerors, or the 
teachings of his present guardians, amounts to only a 
slight concession from his persistent conservatism. 

He is a true pagan, swathed in seemingly dense clouds 
of superstition, rich in fancifid legend, and profoundly 
ceremonious in religion. His gods are innumerable. 
The trail of the serpent has crossed his history, too, and 
he frets his pottery with an imitation of its scales, and 
gives the rattlesnake a prominent place among his deities, 
yet the purity and w^ell-being of his communities will 
bear favorable comparison with those of the enlightened 
world. He is brave, honest and enterprising within the 
fixed limits of his little sphere. Were the whole earth 

139 



MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SAHARA 

swept bare of every living thing, save for a few leagues 
surrounding his tribal home, his life would show little 
disturbance. Possibly he might not at once learn of so 
unimportant an occurrence. He would still alternately 
labor and relax in festive games, still reverence his gods 
and rear his children to a life of industry and content, 
so firmly established is he in an absolute independence. 

Pueblo architecture possesses nothing of the elaborate 
ornamentation found in so-called Aztec ruins in Mexico. 
The house is usually built of stone, covered with adobe 
cement, and is severely plain. It is commonly two or 
three stories in height, of terrace form, and joined to its 
neighbors. The prevailing entrance is by means of a 
ladder to the roof of the lowest story. 

The most strikingly interesting of New Mexican 
pueblos is Acoma. It is built upon the summit of a 
table-rock with eroded precipitous sides, 350 feet above 
the plain, which is seven thousand feet above the sea. 
Acoma pueblo is one thousand feet in length and forty 
feet high, and there is besides a church of enormous pro- 
portions. Formerly it was reached only by a hazardous 
stairway in the rock, up which the inhabitants carried 
upon their backs every particle of the materials of which 
the village is constructed, but easier pathways now exist. 
The graveyard consumed forty years in building, by 
reason of the necessity of bringing earth from the plain 
below; and the church must have cost the labor of 
many generations, for its walls are sixty feet high and 
ten feet thick, and it has timbers forty feet long and 
fourteen inches square. 

The Acomas welcomed the soldiers of Coronado with 
deference, ascribing to them celestial origin. Sub- 
140 



MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SAHARA 

sequently, upon learning the distinctly human character 
of the Spaniards, they professed allegiance, but after- 
ward wantonly slew a dozen of Zaldivar's men. 

By way of reprisal Zaldivar headed threescore soldiers 
and undertook to carry the sky-citadel by assault. After 
a three days' hand-to-hand struggle the Spaniards stood 
victors upon that seemingly impregnable fortress, and 
received the submission of the Queres, who for three- 
quarters of a century thereafter remained tractable. 
In that interval the priest came to Acoma and held 
footing for fifty years, until the bloody uprising of 1680 
occurred, in which priest, soldier, and settler were mas- 
sacred or driven from the land, and every vestige of their 
occupation was extirpated. After the resubjection of 
the natives by Diego de Vargas the present church was 
constructed, and the Pueblos have not since rebelled 
against the contiguity of the white man. 

THE PETRIFIED FOREST 

A stop-over of one or two days at Adamana, in 
Arizona, will permit the traveler to view one of the few 
natural wonders that '^ comes up to its brag." 

Silicified wood is found on the east fork of the Yellow- 
stone and on the high plateaus of southern Utah; small 
segments of trees (chips of the ancient blocks) are scat- 
tered throughout northern Arizona; but, as if laid bare 
for the delight of the tourist and the research of the 
scientist, there are huddled together in Apache County, 
Arizona, vast deposits of petrified wood, from the size 
of a toy marble to trees more than two hundred feet in 
length. 

The Forest covers many thousands of acres, in five 

141 



MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SAHARA 



separate tracts, all easily accessible from Adamana. The 
Third Forest is reached from Holbrook. 

The First Forest, noted for its brilliant colors, is dis- 
tant about six miles from Adamana (altitude, 5,277 feet). 
It is easily reached in an hour and a half. The chief 
object of interest is the Natural Log Bridge, which spans 
a chasm sixty feet wide — a trunk of jasper and agate 






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MAP OF ROUTES 

TO 

PETRIFIED FOREST, 

ARIZONA. 



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=d^ 



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'BuffisM 



overhanging a tree-fringed pool. The Eagle's Nest, 
Snow Lady and Dewey's Cannon are in this locality. 

The Second Forest is two and one-half miles due 
south of the first one, the trip requiring thirty minutes 
each way. It contains about two thousand acres. The 
trees are mostly intact, large, and many of them highly 
colored. The Twin Sisters are an interesting sight here. 

The Third Forest covers a greater area than the others. 
It lies thirteen miles southwest of Adamana and eighteen 
miles southeast of Holbrook. This district contains 
several hundred whole trees, some of them more than two 
142 



MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SAHARA 

hundred feet long, partly imbedded in the earth. These 
huge unshattered blocks of agate are magnificent speci- 
mens. The colors are very striking, comprising every 
tint of the rainbow. The local name of Rainbow Forest 
is therefore very appropriate. 

The Blue Forest (smallest of the five) is seven miles 
east of Adamana, being one of the two districts dis- 
covered by John Muir. It is noted for the blue tints of 
its trees. The North Sigillaria Forest, a new "find," 
is nine miles north from Adamana, and contains many 
finely preserved specimens of the carboniferous period, 
some of the stumps still standing as they grew. This 
Forest is located on the bottom and sides of a shallow, 
wide canyon, with buttes and mesas of different colored 
clays and rocks. One faUen monarch is 147 feet long. 
A wide view of the Painted Desert may be had here. 
On the way an Indian ruin is passed, two miles out. 
Four miles farther the old CaHfornia Trail is crossed. 

The Petrified Forest may be visited any day in the 
year, except when high water renders the streams tem- 
porarily impassable. Leaving the steel highway of the 
Santa Fe, it is a southerly journey across arid mesas on 
a smooth road, full in the glowing Arizona sunshine. 
The four-horse, twelve-passenger coach is easy to ride 
in. The horses trot along a natiu-al highway, in places 
hardpacked by vagrant winds and frequent travel. 
Here one has the unfailing joy of a wide horizon, and the 
bluest of blue skies. There are no trees, except for a 
scant fringe of cotton woods on the Puerco, that incon- 
sequential stream which one day is as dry as a bone, and 
the next a raging torrent; no grass, except stray tufts 
overlooked by foraging sheep; no human habitations, as 

143 



MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SAHARA 

far as the eye can reach — ^just rocks, and sand, and sky, 
with an occasional prehistoric Indian village ruin, or 
lava fragments belched centuries ago from now extinct 
volcanoes. 

Approaching the deposits from Adamana or Holbrook, 
one is attracted by stray bits of petrified wood that 
glisten like jewels by the roadside. Then one espies 
larger and larger blocks, then trunks of trees, then com- 
plete trees, some more than two hundred feet long, 
tumbled about in confusion or lying just as they were 
bared by the action of the elements. There seems to 
be no limit to the deposits — ^literally thousands of acres 
and millions of tons. 

But let no one expect to see trees standing upright. 
They are all prone upon the ground, in a vast basin, 
which was once the bed of an ancient sea. Many of 
these stone trees are partly covered with earth, but 
retain their bark, sometimes even the heart. 

The scene presents endless variety and charm, not the 
least of which is the setting of surrounding cliffs, often 
rising 150 feet in height, and cut up into ravines and 
sloping mesas, variegated with shale, clay and sandstone 
— faintly suggesting the Painted Desert, and it is truly 
marvelous to look upon millions of tons of ghstening 
petrified trees. On some of the slopes, where they lie 
tumbled together, it is as if whole quarries of marble and 
ony^ had been dynamited. And so varied and bright 
are the colors, it is as if rainbows had become imprisoned. 

AZTEC RUINS AND HIEROGLYPHICS 

Occasional ruins of prehistoric Indian settlements are 
encountered in the Petrified Forest region. Some com- 
144 



MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SAHARA 

prise a solitary habitation only. Others show that 
several families were housed together. A few indicate 
the presence of villages numbering many inhabitants. 

The largest of these homes is the Aztec Ruins, two 
and a half miles east of Adamana. Here are walls of 
broken stone and mortar about a foot high, which mark 
numerous dwellings fronting a plaza 130 feet wide by 210 
feet long. Near the plaza's center a small kiva has been 
discovered, similar to those in use by the Pueblo Indians 
of today. The flagstone pavement of this old kiva is 
in a good state of preservation. 

The Hieroglyphics are near by. They are cut in the 
stones of the cliff for a mile or more. The '^cutting," 
however, seems to have been done by pecking the smooth 
rock surface with some harder stone like petrified wood, 
rather than with a metallic instrument. The symbols 
in the first group, and in many following, are conven- 
tional and not easy to decipher. Further on, in a recess 
of the chff, is a large upright rock slab on which are 
shown a lone man, a bird and an animal. The next 
record of interest is perhaps that of a royal wedding. 
The figures are dancing and rejoicing, while a priest holds 
in one hand a rod and in the other the bird of wisdom. 
Almost at the top of the mesa, and not far from the 
Aztec Ruins, may be seen hieroglyphics of flocks and 
herds, with symbols of disaster and increase. 

THE PAINTED DESERT 

Both Adamana and Holbrook are contiguous to the 
Navajo Indian reservation. Holbrook is an outfitting 
point for the Apache country. A stage leaves daily for 
the White Mountain reservation, where lies Fort Apache, 

10 145 



MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN SAHARA 

in the midst of picturesque mountain scenery. The 
unique villages of the Hopi Indians are situated about 
eighty miles north. En route to Hopiland you cross the 
Painted Desert, the plateau between the canyons of the 
Marble and Colorado rivers, deriving its name from the 
marvelous coloring of the rocks. Here live the Navajos, a 
pastoral people, progressive, intelligent and self-support- 
ing. They own large numbers of cattle, sheep and goats, 
till small farms, make the celebrated Navajo blankets, 
and are expert silversmiths. 

Thirty-five miles south of Zuni Station, on Zuni River, 
is the pueblo of Zuni, inhabited by a thousand Indians, 
made famous through the writings of an energetic 
ethnologist, Mr. Frank Gushing, who lived in the pueblo 
for four years, first as a welcome guest and then as a 
member of the tribe. The Zunis always have been an 
imperious people and their ceremonial dances are of 
world-wide renown. 



146 



CHAPTER XVII 
THE CLIFF-DWELLINGS 

TREASURE GROUND OF SANTA FE — PAJARITO PARK 

^VAST COMIVIUNAL BUILDINGS BRUINS SURROUNDING 

FLAGSTAFF PATHOS OF THESE PEOPLE. 

THE SOUTHWEST, we have seen, is the land of can- 
yons and the canyons centuries ago were the haunts of 
the chff-dwellers, mysterious ancestors of the Pueblo 
Indians, who, in building their dwellings, sought the 
safety and inaccessibility of the heights, utiHzing the 
niches and caves of high chffs with additions of masonry 
for their homes. 

Remnants of buried civilization are scattered all 
around Santa Fe with a prodigality that astonishes even 
the archaeologist. Six miles to the south, on the Arroyo 
Hondo, are the ruins of a communal village that has 
been partly excavated and has furnished part of the 
treasures found in the Cole collection in the New Mexico 
Historical Museum and elsewhere. The village stood 
on the brink of a cliff. 

Similarly, five miles to the southwest, at Agua Fria, 
a curious and sprawling Mexican settlement on the 
Santa Fe River, is a mound covered with thousands of 
pieces of ornamented pottery. A partial excavation 
shows it to be a huge communal dwelling that yet may 
yield rich archaeological treasures. Six miles to the 
north, on the Tesuque river, are similar ruins. 

147 



THE CLIFF-DWELLINGS 

PAJARITO PARK 

But all this is as nothing compared with the twenty 
thousand communal and cliff dwellings in Pajarito Park, 
just across the Rio Grande to the west, Pajarito plateau 
embraces the region between the Jemez Mountains and 
the Rio Grande, extending from Gallinas Creek to 
Canada de Cochiti. Pajarito Park is in the center of 
this plateau. It runs from Santa Clara Canyon, on the 
north, to Capulin Canyon, on the south. See map 
of this section on page 171. The first cHff ruins 
in this park are twenty-five miles from Santa Fe and 
here, as Dr. Edgar L. Hewett says, is the most interest- 
ing archaeological region in the United States. 

The cave-dweUings of this region are not merely 
houses built in the shelter of some overhanging cliff, but 
are rooms actually carved out of the chff itself. In 
untold ages past, when the first hardy cliff-dweUers 
sought out this secluded area, they made their homes 
in the many natural cavities in the cliffs. When the 
population began its enormous increase and no more 
natural shelters were to be had, they were obliged to 
fashion new caves for themselves, and these they dug 
into the soft volcanic tufa rock of the cliffs with their 
rude stone tools. 

Every canyon has its cliff waUs literally honey-combed 
with these artificial caves. The visitor enters through 
a tiny doorway and finds himself in a room varying from 
six to ten feet square, with plastered waUs and floor as 
hard as cement. All the caves contain fireplaces, 
granaries and other reminders of domestic life, and the 
blackened ceilings speak of their long occupation. Many 
of the walls are covered with crude decorations, pictures 
148 




Copyriyht by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y. 

The Faithful Burro. The burro is a small donkey common in the mountains 
of the West because of his sure-footedness. The picture shows the descent by 
Grand View Trail, a short, steep mining path, into the Grand Canyon. The point 
is about 1200 feet below the southern rim of the gorge, but the bed of the Colorado 
River is gtill almost a mile farther down. 



THE CLIFF-DWELLINGS 

of plumed serpents and all manner of mythical beasts 
and personages. The cliffs themselves are adorned with 
thousands of crude symbols chipped into the rock by 
the stone hatchets of aboriginal sculptors ages before 
America was discovered. 

Carloads of pottery and utensils have been carted 
away to enrich museums and private collections; and 
the surface is scarcely scratched, for communal ruins 
thus far unmapped are still being discovered and but 
two or three have been excavated to any extent. The 
ground is strewn with bits of decorated pottery, while 
arrowheads and stone axes are to be found about the 
cave ruins. 

VAST COMMUNAL BUILDINGS 

On the Puy^ to the north, large sections of a com- 
munal building of twelve hundred rooms have been 
excavated. It took several seasons to do the work and 
it has yielded specimens that may be found scattered 
in museums from the national capital to the Pacific 
Coast. 

Several hundred rooms of the Tschrega have been 
excavated and explored. To the south, in the Rito de 
los Frijoles, where Bandelier lays the scene of his Delight- 
makers j a circular ruin has been opened up. From the 
top of the dizzy trail that leads down into the canyon 
of the stream that dashes over two high cliffs in foaming 
waterfalls, it looks like the familiar picture of an old 
Greek amphitheater. In this canyon a ceremonial cave 
has been restored as it was in the days when the mys- 
terious cliff-dwellers came to this canyon as the center of 
their empire and worshiped, possibly with the same 

149 



THE CLIFF-DWELLINGS 

rites and dances as may be observed to this day in the 
Indian village of Tesuque, nine miles from Santa F6, or 
on August 4th, at Santo Domingo, the largest Indian 
pueblo within forty miles of Santa F^. 

Whether these cliff-dwellers were the forefathers of the 
Pueblos of the village of San Ildefonso, that lies just 
across the Rio Grande; and of Santa Clara, a few miles 
north; or of San Juan, Picuris or Taos, stiU farther 
north; or of Namb6, below the famous waterfall eighteen 
miles north of Santa F^; or of the pueblos to the west, 
Jemez, Sia, and Santa Ana; or the Rio Grande pueblos 
strung out south of Santa F^ from Cochiti, not far from 
the mouth of the Rito de los Frijoles, in majestic White 
Rock Canyon, to Isleta, south of Albuquerque — is a 
matter of dispute among ethnologists and archseologists. 
All agree that the civiUzation of the communal dwellings 
preceded the thousand-year-old culture of the Pueblos, 
and that the caves in the cliffs beneath the communal 
dwellings have yielded evidence of occupation in days 
that date back to the time of the great lava flow. 

RUINS SURROUNDING FLAGSTAFF 

By stopping at Flagstaff, Arizona, one may visit other 
ruins of the dwellings of a prehistoric people within a 
radius of eight miles. On the southeast. Walnut Canyon 
breaks the plateau for a distance of several miles, its 
walls deeply eroded in horizontal lines. In these recesses, 
floored and roofed by the more enduring strata, the 
dwellings are found in great number, walled up on the 
front and sides with rock fragments and cement, and 
partitioned into compartments. Some have fallen into 
decay, only portions of their walls remaining, and but a 
150 



THE CLIFF-DWELLINGS 

narrow shelf of the once broad floor of solid rock left to 
evidence their extreme antiquity. Others are almost 
wholly intact, having stubbornly resisted the weathering 
of time. Nothing but fragments of pottery now remain 
of the many quaint implements and trinkets that char- 
acterized these dwellings at the time of their discovery. 

PATHOS OF THESE PEOPLE 

Fixed like swallows' nests upon the face of a precipice, 
approachable from above or below only by deliberate 
and cautious climbing, these dwellings have the appear- 
ance of fortified retreats rather than habitual abodes. 
That there was a time, in the remote past, when war- 
like peoples of mysterious origin passed southward over 
this plateau, is generally credited. And the existence 
of the cliff-dwellings is ascribed to the exigencies of that 
dark period, when the inhabitants of the plateau, unable 
to cope with the superior energy, intelligence and num- 
bers of the descending hordes, devised these unassailable 
retreats. All their quaintness and antiquity can not 
conceal the deep pathos of their being, for tragedy is 
written all over these poor hovels hung between earth 
and sky, which hold no place in recorded history. 
The struggles and the fate of these people are all 
unwritten, save on these crumbling stones, which are 
their sole monument and meager epitaph. Here once 
they dwelt. They left no other print on time. 

At an equal distance to the north of Flagstaff, among 
the cinder-buried cones, is one whose summit commands 
a wide-sweeping view of the plain. Upon its apex, in 
the innumerable spout-holes that were the outlet of 
ancient eruptions, are the cave-dwellings, around many of 

151 



THE CLIFF-DWELLINGS 

which rude stone walls still stand. The story of these 
habitations is likewise wholly conjectural. They may 
have been contemporary with the cliff-dwellings. That 
they were long inhabited is clearly apparent. Frag- 
ments of shattered pottery lie on every hand. 



152 



CHAPTER XVIII 
NATURE'S SUPREME MIRACLE 

THE GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA — THE DESCENT — 
IN THE ABYSS — POWELL's GIGAN 
THE SPLENDOR OF A NEW DAY 



IN THE ABYSS — POWELL's GIGANTIC ACHIEVEMENT — 



THE SPECTACLE of the Grand Canyon of Arizona 
is something that one can never forget. Even the 
mighty waters of Niagara cannot impress one as does 
this stupendous miracle in rock, carved by a river and 
the winds and rains of heaven; even the Gothic cathe- 
drals of Europe which seem to have gathered under 
their arching roofs so much of the vastness of the out- 
of-doors and so much of the rehgion of the ages, do not 
smite one into silence in quite the same majestic fashion. 

"How still it is! Dear God, I hardly dare 
To breathe, for fear the fathomless abyss 
Will draw me down into eternal sleep."* 

Here is a gorge over two hundred miles long, from a 
mile to a mile and one-half deep, and ten to fifteen 
miles wide from rim to rim. At the bottom of this 
great chasm flows the Colorado River, the largest factor 
responsible for this immense chasm in the earth's crust. 
This great gorge is filled with mountains, some of them 



* From Henry Van Dyke's The Grand Canyon and Other Poems, published 
by Charles Scribner's Sons. 

153 



NATURE'S SUPREME MIRACLE 



5,000 feet high, upon the top of which the observer on 
the rim looks out. 

The various strata of rock composing the crust of the 
earth are exposed to view — ^the white hmestone on the 




KANAB 
PUTEAU 



MAP or 

THE GKAND CANYON OF ARIZONA 



gOBUTXe 



Quivc»-oa 9 

IJ" 









<? 



^JT 



f i 



.«Si> 






/ 






RY. 



surface, the red sandstone, the blue lime, and the bot- 
tom gorges of deep purple granite form a marvelous 
combination in color effect. The activity of the ele- 
ments, the winds of centuries, the rains and the surging 
154 



NATURE'S SUPREME MIRACLE 

river, have shaped and fashioned this wonderful canyon 
into weird and grotesque formations. 

Perhaps nowhere else is the crust of the earth's sur- 
face open to view so vividly. The story of its formation 
is written in rock, as if it were a printed page — the waving 
of the water, and the raging of the winds have left their 
handwriting in stone. 

THE DESCENT 

Only by descending into the canyon may one arrive 
at anything like comprehension of this marvelous void. 
There are five paths down the southern wall of the can- 
yon in the granite gorge district — Bass', Hermit, Bright 
Angel, Grand View and Hance's trails. The following 
account of a descent of the old Hance trail will serve to 
indicate the nature of such an experience, except that 
the trip may now be safely made with greater comfort, 
and on horseback all the way: 

For the first two miles it is a sort of Jacob's ladder, 
zigzagging at an unrelenting pitch. At the end of two 
miles a comparatively gentle slope is reached, known 
as the blue limestone level, some 2500 feet below the 
rim, that is to say — ^for such figures have to be impressed 
objectively upon the mind — five times the height of 
St. Peter's, the Pyramid of Cheops, or the Strassburg 
Cathedral; eight times the height of the Bartholdi 
Statue of Liberty; eleven times the height of Bunker 
Hill Monument. Looking back from this level the 
huge picturesque towers that border the rim shrink to 
pigmies and seem to crown a perpendicular wall, unat- 
tainably far in the sky. Yet less than one-half the 
descent has been made. 

155 



NATURE'S SUPREME MIRACLE 

Overshadowed by sandstone of chocolate hue the 
way grows gloomy and foreboding, and the gorge nar- 
rows. The traveler stops a moment beneath a slanting 
cliff five hundred feet high, where there is an Indian grave 
and pottery scattered about. A gigantic niche has been 
worn in the face of this cavernous cliff, which, in recog- 
nition of its fancied Egyptian character, was named by 
the painter, Thomas Moran, the Temple of Sett. 

A little beyond this temple it becomes necessary to 
abandon the animals. The river is still a mile and a 
half distant. The way narrows now to a mere notch, 
where two wagons could barely pass, and the granite 
begins to tower gloomily overhead, for we have dropped 
below the sand-stone and have entered the archsean — 
a frowning black rock, streaked, veined, and swirled 
with vivid red and white, smoothed and polished by the 
rivulet and beautiful as a mosaic. Obstacles are encoun- 
tered in the form of steep, interposing crags, past w^hich 
the brook has found a way, but over which the pedestrian 
must clamber. After these difficulties come sheer 
descents, which at present are passed by the aid of 
ropes. 

The last considerable drop is a 40-foot bit by the 
side of a pretty cascade, where there are just enough 
irregularities in the wall to give toe-hold. The narrowed 
cleft becomes exceedingly wayward in its course, turning 
abruptly to right and left, and working down into twi- 
light depth. It is very still. At every turn one looks 
to see the embouchure upon the river, anticipating the 
sudden shock of the unintercepted roar of waters. When 
at last this is reached, over a final downward clamber, 
the traveler stands upon a sandy rift, confronted by 
156 




Copyright by Underwood and Underwood , N. Y. 



Upon the Dizzy Heights. Looking down upon Ayer's Peak, a mountain 6,000 
feet high, in the Grand Canyon, Arizona. 



NATURE'S SUPREME MIRACLE 

nearly vertical walls many hundred feet high, at whose 
base a black torrent pitches in a giddying, onward slide, 
that gives him momentarily the sensation of slipping 
into an abyss. 

IN THE ABYSS 

With so little labor may one come to the Colorado 
River in the heart of its most tremendous channel, and 
gaze upon a sight that until recently has had fewer wit- 
nesses than the wilds of Africa. Dwarfed by these 
prodigious mountain shores, which rise immediately 
from the water at an angle that would deny footing 
to a mountain sheep, it is not easy to estimate con- 
fidently the width and volume of the river. Choked 
by the stubborn granite at this point, its width is prob- 
ably between 250 and 300 feet, its velocity fifteen miles 
an hour, and its volume and turmoil equal to the Whirl- 
pool Rapids of Niagara. Its rise in time of heavy rain 
is rapid and appalling, for the waUs shed almost instantly 
all the water that falls upon them. Drift is lodged in 
the crevices thirty feet overhead. 

For only a few hundred yards is the tortuous stream 
visible, but its effect upon the senses is perhaps the 
greater for that reason. Issuing as from a mountain 
side, it slides with oily smoothness for a space and sud- 
denly breaks into violent waves that comb back against 
the current and shoot unexpectedly here and there, 
while the volume sways, tide-like, from side to side, 
and long curling breakers form and hold their outline 
lengthwise of the shore, despite the seemingly irresistible 
velocity of the water. The river is laden with drift, huge 
tree trunks, which it tosses Hke chips in its terrible play. 

157 



NATURE'S SUPREME MIRACLE 

Powell's gigantic achievement 

Standing upon that shore one can barely credit Powell's 
achievement, in spite of its absolute authenticity. Never 
was a more magnificent self-reliance displayed than by 
the man who not only undertook the passage of Colorado 
River but won his way. And after viewing a fraction 
of the scene at close range, one can not hold it to the 
discredit of three of his companions that they abandoned 
the undertaking not far below this point. The fact 
that those who persisted got through alive, is hardly 
more astonishing than that any should have had the 
hardihood to persist. For it could not have been alone 
the privation, the infinite toil, the unending suspense in 
constant menace of death that assaulted their courage; 
these they had looked for; it was rather the unlifted 
gloom of those titanic depths, the unspeakable horrors 
of an endless valley of the shadow of death, in which 
every step was irrevocable. 

THE SPLENDOR OF A NEW DAY 

Returning to the spot where the animals were aban- 
doned, camp is made for the night. Next morning the 
way is retraced. Not the most fervid pictures of a poet's 
fancy could transcend the glories then revealed in the 
depths of the canyon; inky shadows, pale gildings of 
lofty spires, golden splendors of sun beating full on 
fagades of red and yellow, obscurations of distant peaks 
by veils of transient shower, glimpses of white towers, 
half drowned in purple haze, suffusions of rosy light 
blended in reflection from a hundred tinted walls. 

Again on the plateau, one finds that the descent into 
the canyon has bestowed a sense of intimacy that amounts 
158 



NATURE'S SUPREME MIRACLE 

almost to a mental grasp of the scene. The terrific 
deeps that part the walls of hundreds of castles and tur- 
rets of mountainous bulk may be approximately located 
in barely discernible penstrokes of detail, and will be 
apprehended mainly through the memory of upward 
looks from the bottom, while towers and obstructions 
and yawning fissures that were deemed events of the 
trail, will be wholly indistinguishable, although they are 
known to lie somewhere flat beneath the eye. The 
comparative insignificance of what are termed grand 
sights in other parts of the world is now clearly revealed. 
Twenty Yosemites might lie unperceived anywhere below. 
Niagara, that Mecca of marvel seekers, would not here 
possess the dignity of a trout stream. A man, standing 
at a short distance on the verge, is an insect to the eye. 

Should it chance to rain heavily in the night, next 
morning the canyon is completely filled with fog. As 
the sun mounts, the curtain of mist suddenly breaks 
into cloud fleeces, and while one gazes these fleeces rise 
and dissipate, leaving the canyon bare. At once around 
the bases of the lowest cliffs white puffs begin to appear, 
creating a scene of unparalleled beauty as their dazzling 
cumuli swell and rise and their number multiplies, until 
once more they overflow the rim, and it is as if you stood 
on some land's end looking down upon a formless void. 
Then quickly comes the complete dissipation, and again 
the marshaling in the depths, the upward advance, the 
total suffusion and the speedy vanishing, repeated over 
and over until the warm walls have expelled their satu- 
ration and again reveal their shimmering veils of color. 

It is, indeed, a place of magic. 

Long may the visitor loiter upon the verge, power- 

159 



NATURE'S SUPREME MIRACLE 

less to shake loose from the charm, tirelessly intent upon 
the silent transformations until the sun is low in the 
west. Then the canyon sinks into mysterious purple 
shadow, the far Shinumo Altar is tipped with a golden 
ray, and against a leaden horizon the long line of the 
Echo Cliffs reflects a soft brilliance of indescribable 
beauty, a light that, elsewhere, surely never was on sea 
or land. Then darkness falls, and should there be a 
moon, the scene in part revives in silver light, a thousand 
spectral forms projected from inscrutable gloom; dreams 
of mountains, as in their sleep they brood on things 
eternal. 



160 




I'Jiutu by Brui 

The Royal Gorge Through the Rockies. This deep and gloomy though 
majestic defile is a mile and a half long and almost half a mile deep, and is used by 
the Denver and Rio Grande division of the Southern Pacific Railroad. There is 
a tradition that Spanish missionaries knew the gorge as early as 1642. The first 
railroad train passed through in 1879. 




Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y. 

A Natural Gateway to a Garden of Glory. Massive gateways of red sand- 
stone lead to the Garden of the Gods at the foot of the far-famed Pike's Peak. 
The Latter mountain, rearing its snowy summitl( 14,000 feet) m the background, was 
named in honor of Gensral Pike, who discovered it in 1806. 



CHAPTER XIX 
MAKING THE DESERT BLOOM 

DARING PROJECTS OF UNCLE SAM — TERMS OF THE 

RECLAMATION ACT WHAT THE ROOSEVELT DAM IS 

DOING FOR ARIZONA THE MIRACLE OF YAKIMA 

VALLEY THE WENATCHEE LANDS. 

IF THIS twentieth century is an age of extravagance, 
it is also an age of economy. We are introducing scien- 
tific management into factory and home; we have 
induced the waters and the winds, and even to some 
extent the sun, to do our work; we have learned the 
lesson of conservation; we have achieved results in 
intensive and in dry farming; and we have through 
vast irrigation projects succeeded in making the once 
worthless desert bloom. The limits of the Great 
American Desert are becoming ever narrower and 
narrower. 

Everyone is more or less familiar with the great irriga- 
tion works that have been carried through in the United 
States since the passage of the Reclamation Act in 
1902 — the highest dam in the world (351 feet) on the 
Boise River in Idaho; the Shoshone dam in Wyoming, 
328 feet in height; the dam on the Rio Grande in New 
Mexico, producing the largest lake of its kind in the 
world, covering almost 65 square miles (41,280 acres); 
the Gunnison tunnel, six miles in length, with a dis- 
charge capacity of 1,300 cubic feet per second; and a 
score of others. 
11 161 



MAKING THE DESERT BLOOM 

TERMS OF THE RECLAMATION ACT 

According to the terms of the act Congress was to 
devote the proceeds from the sales of the pubhc lands in 
arid sections to the construction, operation and main- 



Approved irrigation projects commenced, area to be reclaimed, with expenditure to and 
percentage of completion on December 31, 1913, by locations. 

(Source: The Reclamation Service, Department of the Interior.) 





Project. 


Estimates, December 31, 1913. 


Location. 


Area. 


Expendi- 
tures. a 


Per Cent of 
Completion.6i 




Salt River 


Acres. 

175,000 

131.000 

20,000 

53,000 

140,000 

220,000 

118,700 

10,677 

32,405 

219,557 

216,346 

60,116 

129,270 

206,000 

20,277 

10,000 

C155.000 

26,182 

55,000 

70,700 

100.000 

60.000 

9.920 

dl37.361 

164,122 


Dollars. 
11,771,196 
6,750,803 

603,000 

712,985 
5,467,231 
8,822,613 
5,272,054 

379,659 
1,441.197 
2.214.687 
1.231.107 
3.182.182 
5.905.770 
6,422.332 

970.620 

380.028 
3,137,239 

960,215 
1,708,854 
2,532,039 
3,315,501 
2,392,801 

714,413 
6,915,143 
4,227,328 


94 


Arizona-Cahfornia 


Yuma 


65 




Orland 


61 




1 Grand Valley 


16 


t Uncompahgre Valley. . . . 






60 
60 
















100 






98 




Milk River 


32 






10 


Montana-North Dakota . 
Nebraska-Wyoming 


Lower Yellowstone 

North Platte 


95 

87 




80 






100 






77 








30 




North Dakota pumping. . 


50 




68 


Oregon-CaHfornia 




84 




90 


Utah 


Strawberry Valley 


73 




90 


Washington 




f84 






51 








Total 


2,540,633 


86,430,997 











a The amounts in this column include the total amounts paid out for construction and opera- 
tion and maintenance without amounts that have been collected for services rendered, operation 
and maintenance assessments, etc. b The percentages noted in this colunrn represent the ratio 
which costs of construction to date bear to present estimate of total construction cost, c 25,000 
acres additional in Mexico, d Sunnyside unit, 100,000 acres; Tieton unit, 34,000 acres, e Stor- 
age unit, 24 per cent; Sunnyside, 96 per cent; Tieton, 94 per cent. 



tenance of irrigation works to bring to the desert lands 
the water necessary to make them fertile. These lands 
are given under the terms of the homestead law prac- 
tically free of cost to the settler. 

In the first ten years of its existence the United States 
162 



MAKING THE DESERT BLOOM 

Reclamation Service constructed 7,300 miles of canals — 
enough to reach from New York to San Francisco and 
back; it excavated twenty-one miles of tunnels, dragging 
out rock and earth to the enormous total of 93,000,000 
cubic yards; it built 626 miles of road, 2,094 miles of 
telephone and seventy miles of levees; it purchased 1,05,1- 
000 barrels of cement and manufactured in its own mill 
340,000 barrels more; and as a result of this ten years 
of work it made water available for 1,159,234 acres. 

WHAT THE ROOSEVELT DAM IS DOING FOR ARIZONA 

As Frederick Haynes Newell, Director of the United 
States Reclamation Service, expressed it: '^To create 
opportunities for American citizens is the basic intent of 
the Reclamation Act"; and although success in desert 
farming comes only by hard untiring effort, it is estimated 
that ninety per cent of the settlers on the new irrigated 
lands are making good. 

Of all the government's irrigation projects, however, 
the Salt River project is by far the most highly devel- 
oped. On most of the irrigated lands forty per cent of 
the available water is not in use, but the Salt River 
farmers are irrigating practically every acre for which 
they can obtain water. About 90,000 acres are in alfalfa, 
and although alfalfa and other forage crops will always 
be the chief products of the valley, experiment will 
probably develop other valuable crops. The average 
farmer has about forty acres. Ten or twelve years ago 
land could be bought for twenty dollars an acre or less; 
last year it averaged a hundred. 

The Roosevelt Dam, which is the sine qua non of the 
Salt River Valley, was completed early in 1911. It was 

163 



MAKING THE DESERT BLOOM 

capable of holding 1,360,000 acre feet, with a depth of 
227 feet at the dam. In April, 1914, the reservoir was 
still not one-third full, and never since its completion 
had it been more than half full, but in May, 1915, the 
reservoir was completely filled and the hearts of the 
farmers quietly and deeply thankful. The water prob- 
lem for the vast area drawing its supply from the 
Salt River has been solved, for once filled the reservoir 
storage is sufficient to tide the valley over the longest 
period of drought on record. 

THE MIRACLE OF THE YAKIMA VALLEY 

In the Yakima Valle}^, Washington, known through- 
out the country for its fertihty, although on it there once 
grew nothing but sage brush and bunch grass, is irrigable 
land enough to support a population of a million people. 
Less than a third of this is at present cultivated, watered 
from small canals built by private capital, and from the 
two constructed by the United States Reclamation Service. 

A journey along the banks of these canals or the 
Yakima River unfolds a panorama of unusual breadth 
and interest. Instead of the heavy forests of the west 
side, the sage brush struggles for existence just above the 
main ditches; but the country below is checkered with 
orchards, farms, and gardens; and cotton woods protect 
the banks of the streams. Impressive is the sight in 
springtime when fruit trees are all in bloom and the 
Blossom Festival, participated in by a hundred thousand 
people, is ushering in the full tide of spring; or in autumn 
when deeper touches of color mark an immense crop 
ready for the harvester. 

From the hills on either side, the picture assumes its 
164 



MAKING THE DESERT BLOOM 

most perfect form. Cities, meadows, orchards, vine- 
yards, hop fields, vegetable gardens, alfalfa farms, corn 
fields, and prairies, bisected and criss-crossed by railroads, 
highways, canals, and rivers, protected by the brown 
hills near by and watched over by the mountains in the 
distance, supply composition for pictures that in detail 
and variety must discourage all competition. 

THE WENATCHEE LANDS 

Equally beautiful but of smaller dimensions is the 
Wenatchee Valley, reaching from the Columbia -River 
well up into the foothills of the Cascades. This, too, 
was a desolate brown slope until the effects of irrigation 
were felt on its rich volcanic ash soil. After that only 
ten years were necessary to convert it into a garden of 
dazzling splendor. Instead of the forlorn sage brush, a 
maze of orchards, extending up the valley and ascending 
the hills, presents in springtime a solid mass of blossoms, 
varying from purest white to daintiest shades of pink. 
Serpentining along the hill sides, as if protecting the 
gardens below, are the great viaducts, conducting the 
precious waters that irrigate the land; while dodging 
from one side of the vale to the other, or paralleling the 
Great Northern Railroad, the Wenatchee River hastens 
onward towards the Columbia. 

Throughout all the Western states one may see lands 
that were once impossible covered with luxuriant grasses, 
grains and orchard trees; for the arid region sleeps only 
because of thirst. Slake that and it becomes a garden of 
paradise, its rich soil yielding full measure, running over, 
harvests which to the Eastern farmer are fabulous 
indeed. 

165 



CHAPTER XX 
UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 

IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION DENVER, THE 

GATEWAY THE SURROUNDING WONDERLAND FABU- 
LOUS RICHES COLORADO SPRINGS THE LORDLY 

pike's peak MANITOU AND THE GARDEN OF THE 

GODS IN THE CRIPPLE CREEK DISTRICT — THROUGH 

THE ROYAL GORGE AROUND THE CIRCLE — ^A HAPPY 

HUNTING GROUND. 

THE GREAT backbone of the American Continent is 
the Rocky Mountains, and the summits of its main 
range make the parting of the waters, the ''Continental 
Divide." The name of the Rockies is appropriate, for 
on these mountains and their intervening plateaus naked 
rocks are developed to an extent rarely equaled elsewhere 
in the world. The leading causes of this are the great 
elevation and extreme aridity, the scanty moisture prevent- 
ing growth of vegetation, and the high altitudes promoting 
denudation of the rock-material disintegrated at the 
surface. Enormous crags and bold peaks of bare rocks 
mostly compose the mountains, while the streams flow at 
the bases of towering precipices in deep chasms and 
canyons filled with broken rocks. Being unprotected 
by vegetation, the winds sweep the hills clean of soil 
and sand, the steep slopes of the valleys are strewn with 
fragments of the enclosing cliffs, and the rivers are 
usually without flood-plains or intervales, where soils may 
gather. In the extensive and highly elevated plateaus, 
166 



UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 

the streams usually run in the bottoms of deep canyons, 
their channels choked with debris. Added to this the 
whole Rocky Mountain region has in the past been a 
scene of great volcanic activity: many extinct volcanoes 
appear, broad plains are covered with lava, and scoria 
and ashes are liberally deposited all about. 

There are numerous mountain ranges, plateaus and 
parks under different names in this extensive mountain 
region and the higher peaks in the United States generally 
rise to somewhere between thirteen and fifteen thousand 
feet elevation. These mountains and the plains to the 
east compose the vast arid region constituting fully 
two-fifths of the United States, where irrigation is neces- 
sary to agriculture, and, in consequence, less than ten 
per cent of this large surface bears forests of any value. 
We are told that so scant is the moisture, if the whole 
current of every water-course in this district were utilized 
for irrigation it would not be possible to redeem four per 
cent of the land. Some of this surface, however, bears 
grasses and plants that, to an extent, make pasturage. 
The precious metals and other useful minerals are found 
in abundance, and various parts of the region have been 
developed by the many valuable mines, making their 
owners enormous fortunes. 

Through this vast mountain district, over deserts and 
along devious defiles, a half dozen great railways lead 
from the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific slope. 

Denver is the great city of the Rockies, and for moun- 
tain scenery Colorado is without a peer, not even 
Switzerland and her Alps offering more than a fair 
comparison. The crescent chain which forms the chief 
attraction of Cental Europe covers, altogether, an area 

167 



UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 

of about 95,000 square miles. Its crowning peak, Mont 
Blanc, 15,784 feet high, is the most famous and most often 
named of the mountains of the modern world. But 
Colorado has many peaks lacking little of this height, and 
they stand amid others much higher than, but not nearly 
so bleak, as those included in the Alpine chain. The 
famous Jungfrau is 13,793 feet high. The Matterhorn is 




The Marshall Pass District, showing the tortuous path of the raih-oad as it crosses 
the Continental Divide, on the "Around the Circle" tour. From the summit 
the waters flow eastward to the Atlantic and westward to the Pacific. 



still lower. Vegetation ceases at a lesser height than it 
does in Colorado. The Pass of the great St. Bernard is 
only 8,170 feet high. Marshall Pass, in Colorado, is 
10,850 feet and is climbed every day by Denver and Rio 
Grande trains. Le Veta Pass is over 9,200 feet high — 
another railway station. Alpine Pass, on the Colorado 
and Southern, and Rollins Pass on the Denver and Salt 
Lake, have each an elevation of 11,660 feet. Hell Gate, 

168 



UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 

on the Colorado Midland main line, is 10,540 feet. The 
town of Leadville, a familiar residence for several thou- 
sand people, is 10,200 feet above the sea. Some of the 
beautiful and famous parks of Colorado have their 
lowest depths higher than the average height of the 
Alpine chain. 

DENVER, THE GATEWAY 

Denver stands on a high plateau, through which the 
Soutli Platte River flows. This "Queen City of the 
Plains" was settled by adventurous pioneers as a mining 
camp in 1858, and through the wonderful development 
of mining the precious metals has had rapid growth. A 
broad, graceful arch bearing the word "Welcome" greets 
the tourist as he steps from the Union Depot. The city 
has many manufactures and some of the most extensive 
ore-smelting works in the world, the annual output of 
gold and silver being enormous. There are many fine 
buildings, and a noble State Capitol with a lofty dome 
standing on a high hill. The city was named in 
honor of General James W. Denver, who was an early 
governor of Kansas and served in the Civil War. He 
first suggested the name of Colorado, and thus his name 
was given to its capital. Denver has built for its water- 
works, forty-eight miles south of the city, one of the 
highest dams in the world, 210 feet, enclosing a gorge on 
the South Platte to make an enormous reservoir holding 
an ample supply. 

THE SURROUNDING WONDERLAND 

Being so admirably located, Denver is a center for 
excursions into one of the most attractive mountain 

169 



UNDER' THE TURQUOISE SKY 

regions in America. The great Colorado Front Range, 
or eastern ridge of the Rockies, stretches grandly across 
the country and has behind it one range after another, 
extending far west to the Utah Basin. Towering behind 
the Front Range is the Saguache Range, the chief ridge 
of the Rockies, which makes the Continental Divide. 
Among these complicated Rocky Mountain ranges are 
various extensive parks or broad valleys, nestling amid 
the peaks and ridges, which were originally the beds of 
inland lakes. 

Out of this mountain region flow scores of rivers in all 
directions, the affluents of the Mississippi to the east, 
the Rio Grande to the south, and the Colorado and the 
Columbia to the west. AJl of them have carved down 
deep and magnificent gorges, two to five thousand feet 
deep, and in places the wonderful results of ages of 
erosion are displayed in the peculiar constructions of vast 
regions, and in special sections, where the carvings by 
water, frost and wind-forces have made weird and fantastic 
formations in the rocks on a colossal scale, as in the 
Garden of the Gods. 

FABULOUS KICHES 

These mountains and gorges are also filled with untold 
wealth, and the mines, producing wealth of gold and 
silver, have attracted vast numbers, so that the whole dis- 
trict around and beyond Denver is a region of mining towns, 
which are reached by a network of railways disclosing the 
most magnificent scenery, and in many parts the most 
startling and daring methods of railroad construction. 

Whenever land can be reclaimed for agriculture or 
grazing on the flanks of the mountains and in the pro- 
170 



UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 



tected valleys and parks, it is done, so that the district 
has extensive irrigation canals, in some parts diverting 
practically all the available flow of water in the streams. 

DENVER 



''AND AaM RUINSI^j.j^j yg,j^ National »ai 



r.lZARD UEAD-c^*- 



FOUR CORNERS 




Cl .ll Dwi li ngs 



NEW 



The cotirse of the traveler on the "Around the Circle" tour is indicated by 
arrows. Start may be made from Denver, Colorado Springs, Manitou or Pueblo. 

Northwest from Denver is the picturesque Boulder 
Canyon, and here at the mining town of Boulder is 
the University of Colorado. Beyond are Estes Park, one 
of the smaller enclosed parks among the mountains, 

171 



UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 



having Long's Peak on its verge, rising 14,270 feet. 
West from Denver is the Clear Creek Canyon, and the 
route in that direction leads through great scenic attrac- 
tions, past Golden, Idaho Springs and Georgetown, where 
silver-mining and health-resorts divide attention, and 
the mountains display beautiful lakes. Beyond, the 
railway threads the Devil's Gate, climbing up by remark- 
able loops, and reaches Graymont with Gray's Peak above 
it. In this district is the mining town of Central City, 
while to the northwest is the extensive Middle Park, a 
popular resort for sportsmen. Southward from Denver 
the railway route passes the splendid Casa Blanca, a 
huge white rock a thousand feet long and two hundred 
feet high, and crosses the watershed between the Platte 
and the Arkansas. 

COLORADO SPRINGS 

Here, amid the mountains, seventy-five miles from 
Denver, upon a plateau at six thousand feet elevation, is 
the famous city of Colorado Springs, a noted health- 
resort. It is pleasantly laid out, with wide, tree-shaded 
streets, like a typical New England village spread broadly 
at the eastern base of Pike's Peak. Here live large 
numbers of people who are unable to stand the rigors of 
the climate on the Atlantic coast, and it has been carefully 
preserved as a residential and educational city. The set- 
tlement began in 1871, but there are no springs nearer than 
Manitou, several miles away in the spurs of Pike's Peak. 

THE LORDLY PIKE's PEAK 

Probably the best known summit of the Rockies is 
Pike's Peak, rearing its snowy top over Manitou, and 
172 



■V 






"®*!?f. 



! fcdp.tH^li^- 
fe III \ ii- »^ '^ 

y-i "' '^"^ 



1/ ljr\ 




» I 










+i OJ 



o !5 







{••r— I ••«"■■■" pCj »*•- 



UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 

about six miles west from Colorado Springs, to an eleva- 
tion of over fourteen thousand feet. As it rises almost 
sheer, in the Colorado Front Range, this noble mountain 
can be seen from afar across the eastern plains. A cog- 
wheel railway nine miles long ascends to the summit from 
Manitou. In 1806 General Zebulon Pike, then a captain 
in the army, led an exploring expedition to this remote 
region and discovered this noble mountain, which was 
given his name. Forests cover the lower slopes, but 
the top is of bare rocks, usually snow-covered. 

MANITOU AND THE GARDEN OF THE GODS 

Manitou has a group of springs of weak compound 
carbonated soda, resembling those of Ems, and beneficial 
to consumptive, dyspeptic and other patients. They 
are at the entrance to the romantic Ute Pass, a gorge 
with many attractions, which was formerly the trail 
of the Ute Indians in crossing the mountains. Nearby, 
upon the mesa, or 'Hable-land," is the Garden of the Gods, 
a tract of about one square mile, thickly studded with 
huge grotesque cliffs and rocks of white and red sand- 
stones, their unique carving being the result of the erosive 
processes that have been going on for ages. They are all 
given appropriate names, and its Gateway is a passage 
just wide enough for the road, between two gigantic 
red rocks. Farther south on the Arkansas River is 
Pueblo, an industrial city in a rich mining district, where 
there is a Mineral Palace, having a wonderful ceiling 
formed of twenty-eight domes, into which are worked 
specimens of all the Colorado minerals. The route then 
crosses the Veta Pass, whereon is the abrupt bend known 
as the ''Mule Shoe Curve," and beyond this it descends 

173 



UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 

into the San Luis, a park covering six thousand square 
miles. Sentinehng its western side is the triple-peaked 
Sierra Blanca, the loftiest Colorado mountain, rising 
almost 14,500 feet. 

IN THE CRIPPLE CREEK DISTRICT 

Following up the Arkansas River from Pueblo, a 
route goes northward behind and west of Pike's Peak 
into the Cripple Creek district, situated at an elevation 
of nearly ten thousand feet among the mountains, where 
in 1890 was a remote cattle ranch. The next year gold 
was found there, a new population rushed in, and it has 
since become a leading gold producer. Westward the 
route crosses the Continental Divide and descends into 
the extensive South Park, covering two thousand square 
miles, reaching Leadville. In the early days this was the 
great gold placer mining camp of California Gulch. After- 
wards it produced enormous quantities of silver from the 
extensive carbonate beds discovered in 1876, and the 
name was changed to Leadville. North of Leadville is 
the noted Mountain of the Holy Cross, 14,200 feet high, 
named from the impressive cruciform appearance of tv/o 
ravines crossing at right angles and always filled with snow. 

THROUGH THE ROYAL GORGE 

The Grand Canyon of the Arkansas is one of the 
most magnificent gorges in the Rocky Mountains. This 
river above Pueblo forces its passage through a deep pass 
known in the narrowest part as the Royal Gorge, where 
the railway is laid alongside the boiling and rushing 
stream, with rocky cliffs towering 2,600 feet above the 
line. It ascends westward, beyond the sources of the 
174 



UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 

Arkansas, crossing the Continental Divide by the Marshall 
Pass, at 10,850 feet elevation, the route up there showing, 
in its abrupt and bold curves, great engineering skill. The 
Pass is always covered with snow, and the descent beyond 
it is to the mining town of Gunnison. 

The Gunnison River is followed down through its 
magnificent gorge, the Black Canyon giving a splendid 
display for sixteen miles of some of the finest scenery of 
the Rockies. The river is an alternation of foaming 
rapids and pleasant reaches, and within the canyon 
is the lofty rock pinnacle of the Currecanti Needle. 
The adjacent gorge of the Cimarron, a tributary stream, 
gives also a splendid display of Rocky Mountain wildness, 
and below it the river passes through theXower Gunnison 
Canyon, bounded by smooth-faced sandstone cliffs, and 
finally falls into Grand River, one of the head-streams 
of the Colorado. 

AROUND THE CIRCLE 

The combined magnificence of these canyons and 
mountains makes the environment of the Colorado 
mining region one of the most attractive scenic districts 
in America, and the railways have arranged a route of a 
thousand miles through the mountains, starting from 
Denver, under the title of '^ Around the Circle," which 
crosses and recrosses the Continental Divide, threads the 
wonderful canyons, surmounts all the famous passes over 
the tops of the Rocky ranges, and includes the most 
attractive scenery of the district. 

Subhmity and beauty are not usually convertible 
terms. They do not mean the same thing. Grandeur is 
austere. Yet there one finds the most singular combina- 

175 



UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 

tions of these two incompatibilities. The grandeur is 
over all, the overpowering sentiment of the vast domain; 
yet in unexpected nooks and corners one finds the other — 
beauty beyond compare. When one looks for the first 
time upon the Rampart range, fencing the western rim 
of that vast undulating plain like a wall, it is impossible 
for him to imagine Manitou and Ute Pass and Cheyenne 
Canyon and the road to the Garden of the Gods, nestling 
there so near at hand, beneath the cold dome of Pike's 
Peak. When one is at Canon City, a pretty town sleeping 
among its orchards in the sunshine, he does not think 
how soon the train will glide between the mighty jaws of 
the Arkansas Canyon. When one traverses drowsily 
the mesa lands, smooth and wide and given over to bees 
and gardens, that lie west of Denver, he cannot by himself 
foresee the Clear Creek Canyon just ahead, or imagine 
the six parallel tracks and the windings and contortions 
that make the ''loop" at its farther end aboveSilver 
Plume. At Salida, at five o'clock in the morning, when 
the mountain world is filled with turquoise blue, earth 
and air and sky, not merely tinted, but full of the strange, 
solid color that heralds the mountain dawn — one cannot 
imagine the rare, sweet, thin air of the Marshall Pass that 
is just ahead, or see the rocky bosom of Ouray, bare, 
solemn, silent, changeless, serene in the vastness of the 
upper air, yet so near that one may almost count the 
stones that strew that dismal summit. 

So it is that beauty and grandeur never have been so 
nearly akin elsewhere as they are in Colorado. Yet every- 
thing is on a scale of inconceivable immensity. Even the 
mesas and table-lands, where the grass grows as on a 
farm, are four or six thousand feet above the sea — 
176 




Photo by BroLcn Brus. 

"Old Faithful" in Eruption. This famous geyser in Yellowstone Park is 
named because of the clock-like regularity of its eruptions. For over twenty 
years it has been spouting at average intervals of sixty-five minutes. 



UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 

more than twice as high as Mount Everett. There is 
nothing low. The word "valley" is a relative expression; 
low and high have not their usual significance. Looking 
back as the train crawls up a mountain-side in long, 
doubling curves, one is surprised to see, floating far below 
him, a long and trailing film of silver lace; something so 
near and ethereal and beautiful that he cannot recognize 
it as that which he has looked up to all his life — a cloud. 
And on one side the valley sinks away, narrowing and 
lowering in distance that seems infinite. One was down 
there but a short time before and they seemed high. But 
from the opposite window, whither one transfers himself 
to see the very roof of the world, sure that he has attained 
to such a height, as he looks out it is still up, up the 
slanting, narrow track, the world of mountains below, 
above, everyw^here. 

Mingled with these general sensations are the special 
wonders — the places and scenes that have been described 
by travelers over and over again. In the case of most of 
them, it was never of much avail to try to reproduce them 
in words; while all the camera reproduces in miniature, 
though scientifically exact, fails utterly to convey any 
other meaning than that of prettiness. 

A HAPPY HUNTING GROUND 

And if Colorado is the Paradise of the nature-lover, it 
is also the Happy Hunting Ground of the sportsman, for 
forests still cover a large part of the state and they are 
the natural cover for elk, antelope, the mountain sheep 
and a variety of smaller game. Any prospector will tell 
one that there is nothing more common than the fresh bear 
track near the stream, looking like the footprint of a 

12 177 



UNDER THE TURQUOISE SKY 

barefoot baby. All mountain men encounter herds of 
elk and deer. 

The region of the foothills — the land between plain and 
mountain, including both — is the natural home of the elk. 
It is in the more outlying regions, of course, that the big, 
shy game now lives. In the days of Indian occupation, 
all Colorado was a hunting field. The encroachments of 
civilization have naturally restricted the field, but with 
the result that there is now more game in the places still 
occupied than in former times. This unoccupied region 
is still, in the aggregate, as large as New York State. 

Then there is fishing of the best. The watercourses 
of Colorado comprise eight principal rivers, which flow 
from their sources in the mountains in all directions, 
increasing in volume from almost countless tributaries. 
In all these streams the mountain trout is a native and for 
many years trout fishing has been an important pastime of 
residents and their visitors. 



178 



CHAPTER XXI 
AMERICA'S DEAD SEA 

LAKE BONNEVILLE DARING FOUNDERS OF SALT LAKE 

CITY nature's CONTRIBUTION SEEING THE CITY 

SALTAIR BEACH RIVALING PANAMA. 

ALMOST THE whole of the present State of Utah was 
once covered by a great body of fresh water, now known 
to scientists as Lake Bonneville. The name is in honor 
of Captain Bonneville, an army officer, who in 1833 first 
called the attention of the world to proofs of the former 
existence of this great body of water. This lake was of 
the quaternary period and occupied an area in excess 
of 20,000 square miles with a shore line, exclusive of 
islands, of about 3,050 miles, and a maximum depth of 
1,053 feet. Its greatest length was 350 miles, its greatest 
width 145 miles, and its general shape, that of a huge 
pear, with the stem end extending into Arizona. A small 
part of the present states of Nevada and Idaho lay 
beneath its waves. The lake surface was a thousand 
feet higher than the present level of the Great Salt Lake, 
but its waters were fresh, the outlet being to the Pacific 
Ocean through the Snake River. The shelving beaches 
of the old lake are plainly seen along the sides of the 
Wasatch Range in the vicinity of Jordan Narrows and 
the entire section once under Bonneville's waves gives 
proof of its existence through shell deposits and the 
remains of prehistoric life. 

Utah's scenery is peculiarly its own. The fertile 

179 



AMERICA'S DEAD SEA 

mountain valleys remind one of smmy Italy, while the 
pointed peaks of the Wasatch range contain a touch of 
Alpine beauty. The memory of the tints of its skies 
is not soon forgotten and painters have said that the 
scene presented, as the sun sinks to rest behind the lake, 
is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful of the kind in 
all the world. 

DARING FOUNDERS OF SALT LAKE CITY 

When the pioneers of 1847, under the leadership and 
guidance of Brigham Young, set out on their memorable 
journey across the trackless prairies and into the fast- 
nesses of the Rocky Mountains, they had no precedents 
to direct them in their conduct, and no guides to lead 
them into the promised land. They were explorers and 
settlers ; they broke away from the frontier and, traveling 
steadily toward the setting sun, left civilization far behind. 
Arriving in the valley of the Great Salt Lake on July 
24, 1847, exhausted from their long tramp, they were con- 
tent when their leader announced that ''this is the place." 

It was the dogged determination of these pioneers 
that laid the foundations of Salt Lake City, reclaiming 
for the nation a territory greater in extent than the 
thirteen original colonies. They came into a desert and 
made it productive by irrigation; they laid out a city; 
they established homes. On the foundations thus laid there 
has grown a city of more than a hundred thousand inhab- 
itants, one of the most beautiful in the United States. 

nature's contribution 

Nature has aided man in making Salt Lake City 
attractive. Overlooking a great vaUey, with the shim- 
180 



AMERICA'S DEAD SEA 

mering water of the inland sea at its feet, no better spot 
on which to build a city could have been found in all 
the West. From the University campus, on a bench 
several hundred feet higher than the business portion 
of the city, one has a view the beauty of which will cling 
to him as long as memory lasts. At his feet are the 
broad, tree-lined streets of the city with neat and attrac- 
tive homes. Here and there a great mansion or "a lofty 
steeple towers above the foliage. Farther on are office 
buildings, with the stately city and county building in 
the midst of a beautiful park to the south and the 
famous Mormon Temple on the north. Across the 
valley, beyond the emerald stretches of field, stand the 
Oquirrh mountains, in their enveloping blue haze. To 
the east are the richly colored slopes of the Wasatch 
and beyond are great mountain peaks, many of them 
more than ten thousand feet above sea level, wearing 
their caps of snow. To the west, flashing in the sunlight, 
like a mighty gem, is Great Salt Lake, more than eight 
times larger than the Dead Sea of Palestine. 

The business portion of the city is paved throughout 
and the streets are washed daity, so that no dust offends. 
Streams of mountain water flow in the gutters on both 
sides of the street. Many of the streets in the residence 
portions are parked on the sides or in the middle and all 
are shaded bj^ magnificent trees. Roses bloom from 
June until November. 

SEEING THE CITY 

A person may come into the city, hasten to the Temple 
Square, view the magnificent Temple, hear a pin drop 
in the spacious Tabernacle, and later attend an organ 

181 



AMERICA'S D'EAD SEA 

recital there. Words will fail him if he attempts to put 
his impressions into words, for no words can describe 
the marvelous charm of the organ's sweet, vibrant 
tones. Still under its magic influence, the tourist 
whose time is limited is gathered up in a ''seeing" car, 
and is rushed away while the lecturer imparts prosaic 
facts about the Brigham Young Monument, the Bee- 
hive House, the Amelia Palace, Eagle Gate, and the 
tomb of Brigham Young, the founder of the city. Then 
the car hurries through a limited portion of the resi- 
dence districts and returns to the business section. 

The Temple Square is a ten-acre block containing 
the Mormon Temple, Tabernacle and Assembly Hall. 
The Temple, guarded by the angel Moroni and open 
only to Latter-day Saints, is a massive structure, built 
of granite quarried in Little Cottonwood Canyon and 
hauled twenty miles by ox-team. The Tabernacle 
organ, one of the finest in the world, was built under 
the supervision of Brigham Young. It contains 5,500 
pipes ranging from two inches to thirty-two feet in length 
and capable of four hundred tonal variations. Free organ 
recitals are given every day at noon from the middle 
of April until August. 

Eagle Gate, spanning State Street at South Temple, 
was formerly the entrance to the private estate of 
Brigham Young; and Beehive House, Lion House, 
Amelia Palace and the Executive Building are all Mor- 
mon buildings centering around the gate. The Bee- 
hive House is the official residence of President Joseph 
F. Smith; the Lion House was formerly the residence 
of Brigham Young's wives; and the Amelia Palace, 
opposite the Eagle Gate, now owned by Col. Edwin 
182 



AMERICA'S DEAD SEA 

Holmes, ^vas built for the favorite wife of Brigham 
Young. The Executive Building was built to contain 
the offices of the Mormon church. 

The traveler who is not satisfied with superficial obser- 
vation, but whose inquiring mind seeks exact information, 
loiows the city is itself not the source of its wealth. 
Comparative^ little m^anufacturing is done in the inter- 
mountain country. Whence comes the wealth which 
manifestly is here? From the mines and the fields. 
Salt Lake is the center of one of the greatest mining 
countries in the world. In the mountains surrounding the 
valley are mines which produce annually millions of 
dollars' worth of gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, coal. 
Mere mention of the famous camps carries the story of 
wealth — Park City, Bingham, Alta, Tintic, Deep Creek, 
and others. 

A rich agricultural country also surrounds the city, 
needing only the magic touch of irrigating waters, which 
has been applied in large measure. With the certainty 
of moisture at times when it is needed, field crops have 
never been known to fail. 

SALTAIR BEACH 

No visit to Salt Lake City is complete without a trip 
to Saltair Beach, eighteen miles west, and a bath in the 
buoyant waters of the Dead Sea, the wonderful lake in 
which one may frolic as one will without fear of drown- 
ing. The body floats like a cork, so heavy are the 
salt-laden waters, and one emerges tingling and refreshed. 
Saltair has other pleasure-resort attractions also — among 
them one of the largest dancing pavilions in the world. 
The lake itself is eighty miles long and forty wide and 

183 



AMERICA'S DEAD SEA 

contains many islands. And although the waters are 
so salty the islands contain fresh-water springs of rare 
excellence. 

RIVALING PANAMA 

Another trip one should not miss is to the vast copper- 
mining camp at Bingham. When the spectator beholds 
the half a hundred powerful locomotives and over twenty 
great steam shovels, as well as five hundred ore cars 
operating every hour of the day and night on the face 
of this one great mountain of copper ore, it is easy to 
believe that these are the world's greatest mining opera- 
tions. The stupendous undertaking is second in magni- 
tude only to the work on the Panama Canal. Here 
one sees men, with the aid of the most modern mechan- 
ical assistance, literally tearing down a gigantic moun- 
tain and hauling it away. It has been estimated that 
even with the aid of aU the great mechanical contriv- 
ances and thousands of men it wiU require fifty years 
to accomplish this gigantic feat — the moving away of 
one of the great Oquirrh mountains. 



184 



CHAPTER XXII 
THE FANTASTIC PLAYGROUND OF NATURE 

nature's gigantic exposition in YELLOWSTONE 

PARK THE boiling RIVER — THE NORRIS GEYSER 

BASIN LANDMARKS OF THE ROCKIES IN THE FIRE- 
HOLE REGION THE REAL HOME OF THE GEYSER 

A JEWEL IN A DEEP SETTING WILD ANIMALS THE 

CROWNING GLORY. 

IN YELLOWSTONE PARK, in the very heart of 
the Rocky Mountains, set apart forever by act of Congress 
for the benefit and enjoyment of mankind, Nature has 
estabHshed her own gigantic exposition, displaying in this 
mountain-bound plateau a greater variety of wonders 
than she has collected in a like area in any other part of 
the world. Here may be seen, either in active operation 
or in an extinct condition, almost every known variety 
of terrestrial phenomenon. Geysers, hot springs, paint 
pots, sulphur springs, and fumaroles are plentiful, and 
in addition may also be found chffs of natural glass, lava 
beds, great riven rocks filled with basalt, extinct vol- 
canoes, and petrified forests, and over amid the fastnesses 
of the Hoodoo Mountains and on the slopes of the great 
Tetons may be seen remnants of an ancient geological 
period — active glaciers. 

THE BOILING RIVER 

Upon entering the Park the first indication the tourist 
sees of subterranean heat is the Boiling River, which 

185 



THE PLAYGROUND OF NATURE 

issues from an opening in the rocks and empties directly 
into the Gardiner. This river is the outlet for the waters 
of the Mammoth Hot Springs, which find their way to 
this point through underground passages. A few miles 
beyond, the Mammoth Hot Springs themselves are 
reached. 

The living springs are marvels of beauty. Their 
overhanging bowls, adorned with delicate fretwork, are 
among the finest specimens of Nature's handiwork in the 
world, and the colored waters themselves are startling 
in their brilliancy. Red, pink, black, canary, green, 
saffron, blue, chocolate, and all their intermediate grada- 
tions are found here in exquisite harmony. 

The springs rise in terraces of various heights and 
widths, having intermingled with their delicate shades 
chalk-like cliffs, soft and crumbly. These are the 
remains of springs from which the life and beauty have 
departed. 

As the tourist proceeds through the Golden Gate and 
along Kingman Pass toward those objects in which his 
keenest interest centers — the Geysers — he may see to the 
northward, casting the shadow of its mighty presence 
over all the valley, that old sentinel of the Park, Electric 
Peak, whose snow-capped head rises 11,150 feet above 
sea level. 

Twelve miles from the Springs is found a most curious 
volcanic formation. Obsidian Cliff, as its name indicates, 
is a cliff of natural glass at the head of Beaver Lake (so 
named from the old beaver dam which forms it), rising 
black and jagged in vertical columns two hundred feet 
above the road. Here is located the only road of native 
glass upon the continent. 
186 



THE PLAYGROUND OF NATURE 



THE NORMS GEYSER BASIN 



After passing Obsidian Cliff evidences of hot-spring 
action constantly increase, until they reach their climax 
in the Norris Geyser Basin. This basin is supposed to be 




among the most recent volcanic developments of the 
region; but, although it naturally receives a large amount 
of attention from the fact that it contains the first geysers 
coming to the notice of the tourists, it is, in reality, of 

187 



THE PLAYGROUND OF NATURE 

minor importance as compared with the Firehole Basin. 
The main objects of interest here are the Monarch 
Geyser, the largest in the basin, the Black Growler, and 
the Hurricane. The eruptions of the Monarch are verj^ 
irregular, but it sometimes displays tremendous power, 
forcing the hottest of water to a height varying from one 
hundred to two hundred and forty feet. The Hurricane 
and Black Growler are prodigious steam vents, whose 
continuous roar and violent gusts bear a striking resem- 
blance to the driving blasts of a tempest, and may be 
heard a distance of four miles. 

LANDMARKS OF THE ROCKIES 

Just as the road commences to descend from the high 
plateau between the Gibbon and the Firehole Rivers the 
tourist receives his first glimpse of the Teton Mountains, 
over fifty miles away. They are distinctly visible from 
every important peak in the park. 

From the summit of these mountains the range of 
vision covers probably the most remarkable group of 
river sources upon the earth. To the north are the head- 
waters of the Missouri. To the east rise the Yellowstone, 
the Wind, and the Big Horn Rivers. Southward across 
the Wind River Range rises the Platte. From the west 
flank of the mountains issue the tributaries of the great 
Colorado, while finally, interlaced with the very sources 
of the Missouri and Yellowstone, are those of the Snake. 

IN THE FIREHOLE REGION 

In the Firehole Geyser region, which includes the 
Lower, Middle, and Upper Basins, the most pecuUar, 
phenomena of the Park are seen at their best. 
188 



THE PLAYGROUND OF NATURE 

In the Lower Basin are located the Fountain Geyser, 
the first one of magnitude the tourist meets and one of 
the best in the region; the Great Fountain, in some 
respects the most remarkable geyser in the Park, as its 
formation is quite unlike that of any other; the Mammoth 
Paint Pots, the most prominent example of this class of 
phenomena, and nearly seven hundred hot springs. Here 
also is located the Firehole, a large hot spring, from the 
bottom of which, to all appearances a light-colored flame 
is constantly issuing, at times assuming a ruddy tinge, 
and always flickering like the lambent flame of a torch. 
It is only an illusion, however, and is probably caused by 
escaping gas. 

THE REAL HOME OF THE GEYSER 

It is not until the tourist arrives at the Upper Basin, 
however, that he reaches the real home of the genus 
geyser. Here are fifteen examples of the first magnitude, 
besides scores of less important ones, and here they hold 
high carnival. The Grotto, the Splendid, the Giant, the 
Castle, the Lion, the Giantess, and the Bee Hive are 
located here; and here also stands Old Faithful, whose 
hourly eruption affords the visitor, however transient, an 
opportunity of witnessing at least one geyser in action. 
To it fell the honor of welcoming civilized man to this 
remarkable region, for when the Washburn party, from 
a dense forest, which concealed everything around them 
beyond a radius of a few hundred feet, emerged suddenly 
into an open, treeless valley, there, directly in front of 
them, scarcely two hundred yards away, stood the 
vertical column of Old Faithful, 150 feet in the air. 

The most beautiful geyser in the whole region however, 

189 



THE PLAYGROUND OF NATURE 

is the Bee Hive. While not so grand and powerful as 
some of the others, from an artistic point of view it is the 
most perfect geyser in the Park. 

About eight miles beyond the Upper Geyser Basin the 
road crosses the Continental Divide, and then for a 
distance of about ten miles lies on the Pacific Slope. 
From Shoshone Point a glimpse may be had of Shoshone 
Lake, quietly nestled among the mountains, and far away 
to the south may be seen the towering peaks of the great 
Tetons. 

A JEWEL IN A DEEP SETTING 

At Lake View a sharp turn in the forest road brings 
the tourist suddenly in full view of one of the most striking 
panoramas in the world. Immediately before him, 
three hundred feet below, lies the beautiful Yellowstone 
Lake. Beyond, far away along the eastern horizon, rise 
the Absaroka Mountains, while on every hand the dark 
pine forests shroud the slopes and are mirrored in the 
tranquil waters below. 

Yellowstone Lake is nearly a mile and a half above the 
level of the sea, or a quarter of a mile higher than Mt. 
Washington. It has an area of 139 square miles and a 
maximum depth of three hundred feet. At one point 
upon its shore fish may be caught and cooked in the 
boiling spring without taking them from the line. 

About twenty miles above the head of the lake is the 
celebrated Two-Ocean Pass, where exists a most remark- 
able phenomenon. From the north and from the south 
issue two streams, which flow along the top of the Con- 
tinental Divide towards each other until each finally 
divides, one part passing down the Atlantic slope and the 
190 



THE PLAYGROUND OF NATURE 

other down the Pacific^ thus forming a continuous natural 
water connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans 
nearly six thousand miles long. It is supposed that the 
fish in the Yellowstone Lake entered through this connec- 
tion. 

WILD ANIMALS 

Yellowstone Park is the greatest game preserve in the 
United States. Herds of buffalo, elk and moose are 
carefully protected here; and on the mountain tops are 
many big-horn sheep, goats and antelope. The American 
beaver finds a home in the valleys and streams, and fur- 
bearing animals frolic everywhere in the open. No one 
is allowed to molest bird or beast, and in this security 
they become so confident that many of them come 
habitually around the hotels, to the great delight of the 
guests. The park bears are famous and a few of the 
game birds are gradually losing their inherent fear of the 
proximity of mankind. 

Deer and elk are frequently seen along the park drives 
as well as numerous members of the bear family. The 
buffalo are kept in a special enclosure which may be 
visited by a slight detour from the main-traveled road. 
Game fowl are seen in abundance on Yellowstone Lake 
and River. 

THE CROWNING GLORY 

As the Upper Falls are neared the road becomes 
decidedly picturesque. At one point it is hung upon the 
side of an almost perpendicular cliff overlooking the 
rapids of the river; at another it crosses a deep ravine 
over the highest bridge in the park. 

A short distance below this point the now rushing river 

191 



THE PLAYGROUND OF NATURE 

turns abruptly to the right and disappears. Here are 
the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone. The narrowness of 
the vent and the velocity of the current force the stream 
far out from the face of the vertical rock in one bold leap 
of 112 feet. 

A few hundred yards beyond this point a sharp bend 
in the road unfolds to the visitor, all at once, the whole 
vista of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. For 
twelve miles it stretches out below the Falls, dropping 
sheer from a thousand to fifteen hundred feet, and bearing 
upon the face of its walls the most glorious color work 
in the world. At the head of the canyon, enveloped now 
in part, now in total, by a floating robe of mist, are the 
Lower Falls, where the river plunges headlong over a 
precipice 310 feet high, and then silently and beautifully 
winds its way along the bottom of the mighty gorge, a 
sinuous line of green. 



192 



CHAPTER XXIII 
AMONG THE AMERICAN ALPS 

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK IN THE ROCKIES FOLLOW- 
ING THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN TRAIL — THE GOING-TO- 
THE-SUN REGION BY SKYLAND TRAILS — THE MAM- 
MOTH PARK HOTELS THE MOUNTAIN CHALET- 
VILLAGES. 

THE TREMENDOUS mountain-land of Glacier Na- 
tional Park sits high up in the splendid Rocky Mountains 
of northwestern Montana — on and about the Continental 
Divide. The Glacier Park mountains outstretch from 
the Great Northern track all the way north to the 
Canadian border, and from the reservation of the Black- 
feet Indians west to the Flathead River — a mountain- 
land 1,525 square miles in extent. With Mount 
Cleveland (10,438 feet) and Mount Jackson (10,023 feet) 
its generals, a veritable army of magnificent peaks, 
giants of the Divide, for all time is encamped here, peaks 
that rear from eight thousand to ten thousand feet above 
sea level, with their bases thickly forested up to the 
timber line, and their limestone crests by sun and wind 
painted in many colors — reds and browns and blues and 
purples. The ^^roof of America" this region has been 
christened; and from these heights waters start on 
journeys west to the Pacific Ocean, north to Hudson 
Bay and south to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Atop these mountains are eighty living glaciers as 
inspiring as those ice-fields Americans have for many 

13 193 



AMONG THE AMERICAN ALPS 

years been crossing to Switzerland to see; of these the 
great Blackfeet Glacier has an area of five miles. Up in 
these high places, too, are nimble-footed Rocky Moun- 
tain goats, also deer and elk. Among these mountains, 
in the forested valleys where gorgeous wild flowers riot, 
are 250 glacier-fed blue mountain lakes and scores of 
noble cataracts and rollicking mountain streams. So 
many are the tremendous sights to be seen at Glacier 
Park and so many are the stirring out-of-door things 
to be done there that only that tourist who has passed a 
summer within the park has seen and done all. 

FOLLOWING THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN TRAIL 

The main entrance to Glacier National Park is opposite 
the Great Northern station and the automobile highway, 
over which an auto-stage service is maintained, foUow^s 
the old Rocky Mountain Trail, for centuries the north- 
and-south travel route of the Indians, and said once to 
have extended into South America. 

About four miles out a branch auto-stage road reaches 
westward to the Two Medicine country, where Two 
Medicine Lake and River are, and Rising WoK Mountain 
(9,270 feet), and Mount Rockwell (9,255 feet). The 
Two Medicine country commemorates the two lodges in 
which the medicine men of the Blackfeet Indians, the 
one-time proprietors of the Glacier Park mountains, a 
hundred years ago made the medicine that put an end 
to a great famine that had overtaken the tribe. Rising 
Wolf was the Blackfeet name for Hugh Munroe of the 
Hudson Bay Company who settled among the Indians in 
1815 and was the first white man in Montana; Rising 
Wolf Mountain is his monument. 
194 



AMONG THE AMERICAN ALPS 

A dozen miles farther on another branch road strikes 
west along the Cut Bank River — a famous stream for 
the fishing of mountain trout. In the Cut Bank country 
mountain-climbers on the summit of Triple Divide may 
dip up a hatful of water and send parts of it traveling 
to three different seas. 

Thirty miles out from Glacier Park Hotel the auto- 
mobile highw^ay reaches the foot of deep and vivid-blue 
St. Mary Lake — the most beautiful mountain lake in 
all America. Up this lake the good little ship '^St. 
Mary" sails westward for ten miles — deep in among the 
mountain giants of the Park — to the Going-to-the-Sun 
region. 

THE GOING-TO-THE-SUN REGION 

The Going-to-the-Sun region, at the head of St. Mary 
Lake, contains Going-to-the-Sun Mountain (9,594 feet), 
and close about it are Goat Mountain (8,815 feet) and 
Red Eagle (8,500 feet) and Little Chief (9,542 feet). 
Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, too, affords a good example 
of the wealth of historic and romantic interest that the 
Blackfeet Indians have by their association conferred 
upon the whole of Glacier Park. Going-to-the-Sun was 
christened by the Blackfeet generations ago, and com- 
memorates that highly important personage of the Black- 
feet, Sour Spirit. Sour Spirit, according to the Indian 
lore, long ago descended from, his Lodge of the Sun, and 
taught the Blackfeet how to shoot straight with the bow 
and arrow, how to build commodious tepees, and how to 
slaughter the buffalo, herds at a time — and then, before 
his return to the Sun, for an inspiration to the tribesmen 
wrought the likeness of his face on the granite crest of that 

195 



AMONG THE AMERICAN ALPS 

mighty mountain that looms at the head of St. Mary, 
now knowTi as Going-to-the-Sim. The Blackfeet accord- 
ingly christened that superb peak, to quote its complete 
title instead of its present-day shortening, The-face-of- 
Sour - Spirit - who - went - back - to- the- Sun- after -his- work- 
was-done Mountain. 

On from the foot of St. Mary Lake a second division 
of the highway, twenty-five miles in length, extends 
north to the foot of Lower St. Mary Lake and thence, 
turning west, stretches, an inter-mountain highway now, 
up the Swiftcurrent Valley to another wonder place of 
America, deep in among the mountains: the Many- 
Glacier region. Here, about McDermott Lake and Falls, 
are the great pyramid of Grinnell Mountain, and 
McDermott Peak and Gould Mountain, and on the 
heights all around are the many glaciers that give to 
the region its name. 

BY SKYLAND TRAILS 

Up and onto the mountains, three principal trails, 
over which regular saddle-horse service is maintained, 
ascend — Gunsight, Swiftcurrent and Piegan, three sky- 
land trails across and along the Continental Divide. 

Of these'the Gunsight Trail, east to west in direction, 
from the head of St. Mary Lake winds between Citadel 
and Fusillade mountains up to lofty Gunsight Lake, 
six thousand feet above the sea, and the region of Black- 
feet Glacier, and thence, climbs the side of Mount 
Jackson and scales the Divide through the notch of 
Gunsight Pass. From the west gate of Gunsight Pass 
the trail winds on past Lake Ellen Wilson to the Sperry 
Glacier country. 
196 




^ p: o) 



•y' B >'• 

^ ^ QJ 



-t? S'a s^ 



ft, H' 



AMONG THE AMERICAN ALPS 

Swiftcurrent Trail, another east to west trail, from 
McDermott Lake ascends the upper reaches of the valley 
of the Swiftcurrent, and surmounts the Divide at Swift- 
current Pass — a gap in the mighty precipice of the Garden 
Wall. From the Swiftcurrent Trail an expanse of moun- 
tains hundreds of miles in extent is overlooked, including 
Mount Cleveland, the highest peak of the park. Down 
the west slope of the Divide both the Gunsight and 
Swiftcurrent trails descend to Lake McDonald. 

Piegan Trail, on the other hand, is a north-and-south 
trail that links the Going-to-the-Sun and the Many- 
Glacier regions, and follows the Divide. Sexton Glacier, 
Piegan Mountain, Siyeh Mountain (10,004 feet), Piegan 
Pass, Grinnell Glacier and Grinnell Lake are a few of 
the landmarks along the Piegan Trail. 

THE MAMMOTH PARK HOTELS 

The chain of mountain hotels and chalet-groups that 
has been established along the highways and trails is 
interesting and their chief charm lies in the ingenious 
manner in which the architects have built into them the 
atmosphere and traditions of Glacier Park. The outer 
walls of the Glacier Park Hotel have been constructed 
largely of the huge trunks of trees and its thousands of 
feet of exterior galleries are supported by giant tree- 
trunks processed so that their bark is retained and none 
of them is less than six feet in diameter. Inside, the 
most notable feature of the hotel is the Forest Lobby. 
Here splendid fir-tree pillars four feet in thickness rise 
to a skylight set in the roof, and carry a succession of 
interior galleries. From tree-trunks also the hotel desk, 
the various counters and the lamp stands are fashioned. 

197 



AMONG THE AMERICAN ALPS 

The floor is strewTi with carpets of Blackfeet design and 
a host of the gay-hued blankets of the Blackfeet are 
hung upon the walls. Splendid heads and skins of big 
game who in life roamed in these mountains also adorn 
the walls. Still another unique thing is the open 
camp-fire on the lobby floor. In the evenings tourists 
and dignified Blackfeet chiefs and weather-beaten guides 
cluster about a great slab of stone on which sticks of 
fragrant pine crackle merrily. 

The Many-Glacier Hotel is more distinctly Swiss in 
architecture, with its timbered walls stained in many 
harmonious colors and adorned with unique wood- 
carvings. In place of being laid out along a formal 
ground plan, its several sections conform to the irregular 
contour of the Lake McDermott shore. A mural canvas, 
180 feet long, painted by Medicine Owl and eleven 
other Blackfeet chiefs and depicting the history of the 
Blackfeet nation in its palmy days, is a novel decoration 
in the lobby. 

THE MOUNTAIN CHALET-VILLAGES 

Supplemental to the hotel through Glacier Park nine 
chalet-groups are established — in reality nine unique 
mountain villages. These chalet-groups are each of 
them made up of club-chalets, dining-chalets and dormi- 
tory-chalets, modeled after the chalets of the Swiss Alps 
and picturesquely constructed of logs and stones. 

For stiU other lodging places there have been estab- 
lished on Lake McDermott, and on Lake St. Mary near 
Going-to-the-Sun Chalets, tepee camps where the tourist 
may lodge somewhat as the old-time Blackfeet Indians 
did. 
198 



AMONG THE AMERICAN ALPS 

Walking tours through the park are highly popular 
and indeed to one who really loves the open this is the 
only way to travel through this great national play- 
ground. One can follow the traveled routes, stopping 
over night at the picturesque chalets, or push on, follow- 
ing the dim and little-traveled trails of the Indian and 
ranger, into the wilderness, but always through a region 
of indescribable beauty, with new scenic surprises at 
every turn. 



199 



CHAPTER XXIV 
THE LURE OF THE NORTHWEST 

A REGION OF ENDLESS CHARM FABULOUS ORCHARDS 

ROMANCE OF THE WHEAT FIELDS THE INLAND 

EMPIRE MIGHTY FORESTS THE GREAT SALMON 

FISHERIES THE MAJESTIC RIVER OF THE NORTHWEST 

THE ROSE CITY AT THE FOOT OF MT. HOOD 

A LAKE IN THE CRATER OF A VOLCANO TACOMA AND 

SEATTLE THE LORDLY MT. RAINIER. 

THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST is a region of beautiful 
mountains, broad rivers and fruitful valleys. Every- 
thing that will grow in the temperate zone will grow 
here and with such a prodigality that it produces three- 
pound apples, bumper crops of wheat, and trees that 
reach a height of three hundred feet or more. 

To the east, beyond the Cascade Mountains, the 
climate is similar to that of Maryland or the famous 
valley of Virginia, colder in winter and warmer in sum- 
mer than that of the western section, but pleasant and 
healthful everjn^^here — a climate promotive of growth 
and vigor, health, energy and success. 

The mountain tops, ever in view, are always snow- 
covered, and while the heat prostrations and sunstroke 
of midsummer work havoc in Eastern cities, people in 
this country work all day in comfort and at night draw 
their blankets closely around their shoulders, thankful 
for the rest that they can enjoy. These mountains, too, 
intercept the moisture-laden winds sweeping in from 
the Pacific, sending the moisture back as warm rain. 
200 



THE LURE OF THE NORTHWEST 

FABULOUS ORCHARDS 

Some of the greatest fruit-growing country in the 
world is contained in the Willamette and Hood River 
valleys in northwestern Oregon, in the Rogue River 
Valley in southw^estern Oregon, the Grande Ronde Valley 
in the northeastern part of the state, the Yakima and 
Wenatchee valleys in central Washington, and the 
Palouse country in southeastern Washington and west- 
ern Idaho. One associates the apple with Oregon as 
naturally as one associates the orange with southern 
California. 

Usually the fruit is sold in the orchards, the bulk of 
the product being shipped abroad. Over six hundred 
carloads of apples and four hundred carloads of other 
fruit — chiefly pears — are shipped from the Rogue River 
district annually, seven hundred carloads of apples, 
and sixty carloads of prunes from Union County, and a 
large product from the Grande Ronde Valley and the 
territory tributary to Lewiston, Idaho; while from the 
Yakima Valley, in the irrigated district, with more 
than two million acres of irrigable lands, hundreds of car- 
loads of apples and peaches are shipped annually. 

ROMANCE OF THE WHEAT FIELDS 

Wheat, like apples, is grown in fabulous abundance in 
the Northwest, and Portland ships more foreign wheat 
than any other port in the United States. In the Inland 
Empire, a large area reaching as far north as Spokane, 
as far south as Union and La Grande, east to Lewiston, 
and west to Heppner and the Cascades of the Columbia, 
and including varied altitudes and widely divergent 
features of climate, the cost of grain production is very 

201 



THE LURE OF THE. NORTHWEST 

low, and the soil seems, although repeatedly cropped, 
to be inexhaustible. This Inland Empire, peculiarly 
adapted to the raising of small grain, has carried the 
name of Walla Walla to the grain markets of the world, 
and wherever wheat is bought and sold, the name of 
this prosperous little city is known. The Inland Empire 
produces from forty to sixty million bushels of wheat 
each harvest, Walla Walla County alone producing a 
tenth of this amount. 

THE INLAND EMPIRE 

This region was once a desolate waste, for thousands of 
years ago, scientists tell us, there existed between the 
Rocky Mountains and the Cascade range a vast inland 
sea — the waters left imprisoned when the ocean receded. 
After many ages these pent-up waters burst the restrain- 
ing barriers and forced their way to the ocean, creating 
the deep canyon of the Columbia, but leaving behind a 
broad plain, now a veritable '^Land of J Canaan." Its 
plateaus unite to form one of the bountiful ''bread 
baskets of the world" while its valleys yield generously 
of nearly aU the products of husbandry. 

MIGHTY FORESTS 

Dense forests of evergreen trees almost envelop the 
hiUs and mountains. ^Scarcely any portions were origi- 
nally left bare, except the higher peaks, which in a 
spirit of independence seem to have pushed their bald 
heads up and above this beautiful covering. Into the 
fertile valleys and along the river banks clear to the sea 
the stately ranks of these forests once advanced, but 
such localities are now, for the most part, given over to 
202 



THE LURE OF THE NORTHWEST 

the cities and the husbandmen or else in a state of semi- 
transformation are awaiting the day when they too will 
be devoted to the peaceful pursuits of agriculture. 

The sturdy monarchs have all been honored with 
names and thoroughly worthy of their names they are, 
without a blemish to mar their fame in spite of the ages 
through which they have lived. Most prominent is 
the Douglas fir, or Douglas spruce, the giant of the forest, 
growing erect as a plumb-line until it ends in a pyramidal 
crowTi two hundred feet or more above the ground. This 
is a most important tree, for its product houses the 
people, and for the past ten years has insured Wash- 
ington first place in lumber production in the United 
States. Some of the largest trees reach the enormous 
proportions of eight, ten, and even twelve feet in 
diameter, a single one producing material sufficient to 
build a palace of huge dimensions. Of great importance 
also is the red cedar, reaching sometimes a height of 
two hundred feet and ^having a diameter in rare cases 
of over twenty feet ; yielding for the state of Washington 
two-thirds of all the shingles produced in the United 
States. 

THE GREAT SALMON FISHERIES 

If Washington and Oregon did not possess their thou- 
sands of fertile acres of fruit and grain, their timber and 
their natural wealth, the yearly harvest from the sea 
would still be worth enough to make them rich, for the 
greatest salmon fisheries in the world are here along the 
Columbia, where, year after year, early in the spring, the 
salmon >begin to move, leaving the ocean in accordance 
with the impulse which comes only once in their lives, 

203 



THE LURE OF THE NORTHWEST 

back to the fresh water that was their birthplace, to end 
their lives in some^mountain torrent, perhaps hundreds 
of miles from the ocean. 

It is a glorious sight to see the salmon entering the 
Columbia. On one dayj^there is not a fin in sight, and 
twenty-four hours later one might almost cross the river 
on their backs, as George Francis Train declared he did, 
some years ago. In myriads they come, pushing, fight- 
ing for first place, springing up falls and ascending rapids 
— the feats they perform in reaching their destination 
seem incredible. Those which escape the trap, fish 
wheel, gill net and other devices for their capture, swim 
steadily up stream (fasting ahvays after entering fresh 
water) until they reach that locality which appeals to 
them as proper for spawning. Here the paired-off fish 
make a sort of nest, scooping out a shallow place and 
scraping pebbles about it so that the precious eggs may 
not wash down stream. Once hatched, everything able 
to catch them feasts upon them, but in spite of all they 
go each year in millions to the sea, while the old ones 
die, once the eggs are cared for. 

THE MAJESTIC RIVER OF THE NORTHWEST 

It is difficult for one who has never seen the Columbia 
to realize its size. It reaches, near its mouth, a width 
of seventeen miles. For over a hundred miles it is open 
to ocean-going vessels of the deepest draft and it is the 
main artery for water traffic for a region which is imperial 
in the extent of its resources and the size of its territory. 

Its upper waters sluice mining camps innumerable, 
furnish water power and carry millions of logs, which, 
converted into lumber, find their way to almost every 
204 



THE LURE OF THE NORTHWEST 

country in the world. Its lower waters teem with 
salmon in season, and a great fleet of both steam and 
sailing craft traffic upon it and its tributaries. The 
products of the country, wheat, lumber, flour, wool, 
salmon, hides, hops, apples and other products of forest 
and mine, orchard and ranch, are found throughout the 
world's wide markets. 

John Muir says of it, ''The Columbia, viewed from the 
sea to the mountains, is like a rugged, broad-topped, 
picturesque old oak, about six hundred miles long and 
measured across the spread of its upper branches, nearly 
a thousand miles wide; the main limbs are gnarled and 
swollen with lakes and lake-like expansions, while innu- 
merable smaller lakes shine like fruit among the smaller 
branches." 

THE ROSE CITY AT THE FOOT OF MT. HOOD 

The Annual Rose Festival, held in Portland in June, 
serves to keep the city prominently in the public eye, 
and the location, on the Willamette River, from a scenic 
point of view, is unexcelled. The terraced, wooded 
heights behind the city, fast becoming covered with 
beautiful homes, afford wonderful situations from which 
to view the rich panorama of river, mountain, and 
forest that stretches from the southern horizon to the 
limits of vision far to the north. The Cascade range in 
its great, green, wavy undulations rises to the east, 
cleft by the mighty gorge of the Columbia River. Here 
and there, projecting high above the main range, stand 
Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, 
and Mt. Rainier, Vv-hite and glittering, robed in ice and 
snow, and forming imperishable monuments of grandeur. 

205 



THE LURE OF THE NORTHWEST 

In the foreground the great city slopes down to the deep, 
currentless river and then rises in easy grades to the 
foothills of the mountains about Mt. Tabor and its 
adjacent elevations. The central figure of the scene is 
Mt. Hood, 'Hhe pride of Oregon," and it is a revelation 
to those who have never feasted their eyes on such a 
sight. The masted ships and scurrying or docked steam- 
ers betoken the large river and ocean commerce that 
centers here. 

A LAKE IN THE CRATER OF A VOLCANO 

The most curious natural phenomenon in Oregon 
is Crater Lake. Mysterious indeed is this lake 
which apparently has no outlet and into which no 
rivers flow and the waters of which are still pure and 
sweet. 

Roughly circular in shape, with a diameter of five 
miles, the lake is inclosed by walls of igneous rock which 
rise from five hundred to two thousand feet above the 
surface of the water. Blue, deep blue and beautiful is 
the water, and blue it may well be, for the bottom lies 
almost another two thousand feet beneath. 

Many centuries ago fire and lava belched forth from 
the bowels of the earth in the very spot where now hes 
this quiet lake. The volcano was probably as high as 
Mt. Shasta, California (14,380 feet), and the lake is 
still more than six thousand feet above the sea. 

Wizard Island, near the western shore, is an extinct 
volcanic cone — a curious example of a crater within a 
crater. Phantom Ship, to the south, is composed of 
columns of rock, resembling, as the name indicates, a 
ship. 
206 



THE LURE OF THE NORTHWEST 

TACOMA AND SEATTLE 

What Portland is to Oregon, Tacoma and Seattle are 
to Washington. Tacoma overlooks Commencement 
Bay, of Puget Sound, with Mt. Rainier, about forty 
miles distant, a great, majestic outpost. It is a pic- 
turesque city, high on a bluff above the deep blue waters 
that rush in and out twice a day with the tides on which 
are borne to the gigantic wharves the choice products of 
China, Japan, and the far eastern countries, and from 
which are shipped to the Orient, lumber, grain, cotton 
and manufactures in ever-increasing quantities. 

Seattle is situated on Elliot Bay, of Puget Sound, 
about an hour's ride from Tacoma by steamer or rail. 
To the west, across the Sound, the Olympic Range 
show^s its snow-tipped peaks, and Mount Rainier is seen 
to the south. From almost any elevated part of the 
city these two mountain pictures, with the calm waters 
of the sound lying between, provide a wonderful pano- 
ramic view. Seattle does an enormous export and 
import business, and its industrial and commercial 
growth has been remarkable. 

THE LORDLY MT. RAINIER 

For those who have not seen Mt. Rainier, or Mt. 
Tacoma as the people of Tacoma call it, it is almost 
impossible to imagine its majesty. It is visible, if the day 
is clear, long before reaching Tacoma. From all 
points on the Sound this grand mountain looms high 
over everything. If one sees it at sunrise or sunset 
under favorable circumstances, one has a vision such as 
rarely is vouchsafed mortals to see. 

The region immediately surrounding Mt. Rainier has 

207 



THE LURE OF THlS NORTHWEST 

recently been set aside as a National Park and perhaps 
no other area in the world brings so many and such 
varied natural wonders to the very doors of two great 
cities. It contains a total of 324 square miles, of which 
one hundred square miles is occupied by Mount Rainier 
(or Mt. Tacoma), king of mountains, rising apparently 
directly from sea level, and visible from almost every 
point in the state. No grander expression of Nature's 
sculptural art exists than this mighty pinnacle, 14,408 
feet in altitude, whose glacial "area, no less than 45 
square miles in extent, exceeds that of any other peak 
in the United States. One of the most interesting 
glaciers is Carbon on the north slope, reaching down 
to a lower elevation than any other; the most readily 
reached is the Nisqually, five miles in length; and the 
largest is the White or Emmon's. 



208 



CHAPTER XXV 
THE LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN 

ALASKA, STRANGE COUNTRY OF THE NORTH 

nature's gorgeous PAGEANTRY THE OLD RUS- 
SIAN CAPITAL — CORDOVA AND THE COPPER RIVER 
COUNTRY — ^A GOOD INVESTMENT. 

A MYSTERIOUS COUNTRY there is to the north, 
where the aurora boreahs gleams in the sky and the red 
midnight sun doubles back on his track when the year- 
tide is full. 

A strange land it is, filled with contrast and charm. 
From the far frozen seas it sweeps south many leagues 
to the western islands where the warm breath of Japan 
fills the air. Silent snow-fields lie sleeping where no 
man's foot has trod. Busy towns spring to life where 
restless human beings dig and scramble for gold, and 
the roar of blasts and din of mills shatters the air, night 
and day. Great cold peaks hft their pallid face against 
skies so blue that it seems all the color in the world 
must have been spilled there, and painted hills of the 
Yukon rise like rainbows. 

Newest of all the corners of the United States is this, 
yet ancient and quaint, with an old-world civilization 
transplanted on its shores a century and a half ago, 
in the days when Baranof was the "little Czar of the 
Pacific"; when the bells of the old California missions 
were cast in the foundries of Sitka, and Russian feet 
danced to Russian music in the castle on the hill. 

14 209 



LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN 

nature's gorgeous pageantry 

Many days and long weeks would be needed to travel 
the length of this strange land. Over mountains, along 
mighty winding rivers, and out again to the sea one 
would go. But the '^pan-handle" portion to the south- 
east is the threshold: and from here one may glimpse 
the great country. 

Leaving Seattle by night, the steamers turn north 
with throbbing engines, like the pulses of eager soldiers 
of fortune, who rushed here in mobs in the gold fever 
of '97. Waking in the morning, one sees the green 
shores of Vancouver Island facing the hills of the main- 
land across the waterway between. The ''inside pass- 
age," as it is called, winds through the protected channels 
of the Alexander Archipelago; and the country along 
these shores is storied territory, visited by the early 
navigators of the Pacific. Past Queen Charlotte Sound 
and the little stretch of open ocean, the hills grow more 
thickly timbered and one gets the impression of unopened 
country. 

The boundary of Alaska begins at Dixon Entrance. 
And here, also, in the popular notion of the day, the 
reign of order ceases. 

"There's never a law of God or man 
Runs north of fifty-three." 

Clinging to a hillside, with the business section along 
the level seashore, is Ketchikan, the first port of call 
in Alaska, one of the newer of the towns, built up as a 
center for a variety of interests. A copper district 
surrounds it, and there are gold prospects also. 
210 



LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN 

Metlakahtla, the next stop, is an interesting example of 
a communal settlement. In 1887 about eight hundred 
Christian Indians of the Tsimpsian tribe, under the 
leadership of the Reverend William Duncan, abandoned 
their village in British Columbia in order to gain greater 
religious liberty and settled on the body of land knoTvn 
as Annette Islands. Congress later set apart this reser- 
vation for their use. A definite municipal system of 
government was framed, town officials elected, and a 
school and church founded. 

After more winding of the way and sailing past green 
shores and foamy cataracts one reaches Wrangell, one of 
the oldest of Alaskan towns. A military post was estab- 
lished here by the United States Government at the 
time of the purchase of Alaska and maintained until 
1887. The original route to the interior country, also, 
was by way of the Stikine River opposite Wrangell. 
There is a large sawmill located here, which sends its 
shingles and lumber all over Alaska. And here also are 
some of the oldest and most interesting of the native 
totem poles. 

After a run through Frederick Sound and Stevens 
Passage, along the length of Admiralty Island, one 
reaches Taku Inlet and the glacier of the same name. 
There are two of the ice-rivers, almost side by side — 
splendid examples of the ^'dead" and ''live" glaciers — 
one to the left, gray, dingy, receding, with the great 
terminal moraine between it and the sea; the other, 
bright, sparkling and blue, a great wall of ice jutting 
over the water, from which huge icebergs come tumbling 
with a crash like thunder, splashing the water high in 
air and filling the channel with fantastic shapes. The 

211 



LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN 

Indians have woven legends about the latter, and call 
it ^'Sitth Klummu Gutta/' the home of the spirit. 

Juneau, the capital of Alaska, is a few hours' steaming 
from here, a pretty little town, at the foot of a towering 
moimtain. Silver Bow Basin, behind the town, is one 
of the most beautiful of mountain canyons in Alaska, 
and is the scene of extensive mining operations. 

The residence city of the great Treadweil mines, 
Douglas, is just across Gastineaux channel and con- 
nected by telephone and ferry. It is a progressive and 
growing Alaskan town, whose birth dates from the dis- 
covery of placer gold on the island by 'Trench Pete" 
(Pierre Erussard), twenty-five years ago. 

Big scarlet oil tanks and rows of red cottages rising 
from the shores of Douglas Island announce the city 
of TreadweU. Here is the largest gold mine in the 
world as to tonnage; and as to output, the second largest 
in the United States. This one mine alone has more 
than three times paid the purchase price of all Alaska. 
The yawning pits, or ''Glory Hole," the heavy blasting, 
the mills grinding away night and day the year round, 
are all of interest. The to\Yn is not incorporated, the 
site being the property of the operating company. 

From Haines, the next stop, started the once-famous 
Dalton trail to the interior, before the Skagw^ay trail 
was opened. The territory of the Chilkat and Chilkoot 
tribes Hes back of here. Fort Wm. H. Seward, just 
adjoining, has one of the most picturesque situations 
imaginable, and is the military headquarters for south- 
eastern Alaska. 

At the head of Lynn Canal lies Skagrv^ay, with various 
claims to interest. Historically it is the boom town that 
212 




Photo by Brown Bros. 

El Captain, the Silent Sentinel of the Yosemite. The great cliff of soHd 
granite towers into the clouds, majestic, beautiful. 



LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN 

sprang to life in a night with the route over the White 
Pass, and the scene of operations of the notorious 
''Soapy Smith" gang of desperadoes. Geographically, 
it is the gateway to the Yukon country, and during the 
summer months is filled with travelers. There are 
numerous hotels, curio shops, and some fine gardens. 
Deserted Dyea is near by; and Mount Dewey just 
behind, tempting to alpine climbers. The railroad trip 
over the White Pass and Yukon Railroad to the summit 
of the White Pass follows the old trail to the Klondike, 
and winds up to dizzy heights on the w^ay. White 
Horse, on the Yukon River, is the terminus, and from 
here the steamers leave for Dawson, Fairbanks and 
St. Michael, two thousand miles down-stream on Bering 
Sea. 

THE OLD RUSSIAN CAPITAL 

Tucked away on the seaward side of Baranof Island, 
back of a hundred low islands, with the snowy outline 
of Mt. Edgecumbe looming like a dream, lies the ancient 
trading post of Sitka, wrapped in memories of by-gone 
days. The old moss-covered warehouse is there still, 
where piles of priceless sable, ermine and beaver were 
stored; the old blockhouse and the Greek Cathedral of 
St. Michael, with its famous Madonna, its store of rich 
vestments and ornament. Sitka was the seat of govern- 
ment of Alaska in Russian days, probably because it was 
more accessible to Siberia than any other toun in south- 
eastern Alaska, and it remained the capital of the 
territory for nearly forty years after its purchase by the 
United States. 

Lovers' Lane, the beautiful Indian River road, winds 

213 



LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN 

along by the sea, at the edge of the forest, with gay 
totem poles flashing out here and there, or crumbling 
old war canoes. 

CORDOVA AND THE COPPER RIVER COUNTRY 

Following the coast farther north one reaches the 
beautiful harbor of Cordova, the present gateway to 
vast copper and coal fields by way of the Copper River 
and Northwestern Railway, though destined to become 
less important when the government railways now under 
construction are completed. Cordova enjoys the for- 
tunate combination of deep water and easy access to 
the great interior. Sheltered by forest and mountain 
its air has the softness of a Puget Sound atmosphere. 
But back of it, seaming the mountain sides, are great 
glacial masses. Fifty miles away are Childs' and Miles' 
glaciers. Along the river's edge for three miles Childs' 
glacier lifts its colossal face three hundred feet high. 
From a point back in the mountains, seventy-five miles 
away, its gigantic body winds along slope and chasm, 
ever accumulating in the range and ever losing at the 
river, where riven tons at frequent intervals crash down 
to spot the water with floes. 

' The road extends from Cordova up the Copper River, 
a distance of 131 miles, to the town of Chitina, at the 
mouth of the Chitina River, which flows into the Copper 
River from the eastward, and thence east along the 
Chitina sixty-five miles further to Kennecott, where is 
located one of the largest high-grade copper mines in 
the world. 

From Seward, on the Kenai Peninsula, the government 
is working on a railroad, which will mean much to the 
214 



LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN 

pioneers of Alaska and also be an interesting experiment 
in government ownership of a common carrier. 

Of the interior, one-fifth the size of the United States, 
much might be written, but it is largely the land of the 
miner, the trader, the trapper and the pioneer; far out 
of the ordinary tourist route. 

A GOOD INVESTMENT 

Concerning the wealth of Alaska much has been reported 
and much yet remains to be discovered. The territory 
was purchased from Russia in 1867 for $7,200,000, and 
from that time until the close of 1912 it had produced 
minerals, fishing products and furs to the amount of 
$460,000,000. Alaska's commerce includes northward 
shipments of food products, merchandise, machinery, 
lumber, coal, etc., and return shipments of gold, silver, 
copper, salmon, halibut, etc. The average annual value 
of this growing commerce during the five years ending 
with 1912 was nearly fifty million dollars. In addition to 
this the territory produces annually some lumber, farm 
products, etc., which are consumed locally and as to the 
value of which no accurate^figures are available, although 
it is probably about half a million dollars. The mineral 
wealth of Alaska is at present its most important 
resource, but the territory also includes extensive tracts 
of farming and grazing lands and many water powers. 
Excellent timber occurs in southeastern Alaska, while 
the inland forests are valuable for local use. There are 
also valuable fisheries along the Pacific seaboard. No 
matter how considered, Alaska has proved a highly 
profitable investment for Uncle Sam. 

215 



CHAPTER XXVI 
"OUR LADY, QUEEN OF THE ANGELS" 

RELIGIOUS ORIGIN OF THE NAME LOS ANGELES THE 

SIERRA MADRE — ^A COSMOPOLITAN CITY A GARDEN 

CITY THE LONGEST AQUEDUCT IN THE WORLD THE 

MISSION PLAY THE ENCHANTED ISLE TO REDLANDS 

AND THE ORANGE GROVES. 

THE ORIGINAL name of the pueblo of Los Angeles, 
following the custom that then prevailed among the 
Latin races, of giving religious names to places, was 
NuestraSenora de Los Angeles, sometimes written Nuestra 
Senora la Reina de Los Angeles — ''Our Lady, Queen of 
the Angels." This has been shortened in our practical 
Yankee speech to Los Angeles. Los Angeles was founded 
on September 4, 1781, by a small band of pobladores, 
or colonists, who had been recruited in the Mexican 
states of Sinaloa and Sonora, and brought here under 
command of a government officer, to found an agricul- 
tural colony, for the purpose of raising produce for the 
soldiers at the presidios. 

THE SIERRA MADRE 

The San Gabriel Valley, which forms the amphitheater 
in which the city and its garden suburbs spread out, 
is one of the most picturesque that could be imagined. 
Encircling it are the foothills of the Sierras, magnificent 
bald mountains, standing sculpture-like against the sky, 
216 



"OUR LADY, QUEEN OF THE ANGELS" 

much like gigantic sand dunes in formation, and chang- 
ing in color, light and shade with every hour of the day. 
The Spaniards named them '^ Sierra Madre," ''mother 
mountains," and the musical name has clung as have 
so many others that these pioneer people scattered over 
the lands they settled, like the fragrance of lavender 
among old linens. 

Here is the city for those who wish to get back 
to nature, for here one may live out of doors the year 
round. Southern California, as a whole, has a climate 
that is almost perfect. On the coast it is cool in sum- 
mer, with occasional fogs at night; farther inland it 
becomes warmer, and in places decidedly hot at times, 
though, owing to the dry atmosphere, a temperature 
of 100° is less oppressive than 80° on the Atlantic coast. 
On a winter's day the traveler may breakfast by the 
seashore, dip in the ocean, lunch amid the orange groves 
and dine in the snow-fields of the Sierras. 

There is really no winter and summer in Los Angeles 
county. They are represented by a wet and dry season. 
The former is far from a steady downpour, as some 
suppose, and in many ways the rainy season is the 
pleasantest of the year. A beautiful sight is the birth 
of spring when the bare, brown hills are transformed by 
a mantle of living green. 

A COSMOPOLITAN CITY 

There is a delightful foreign atmosphere for the 
traveler who will seek it in Los Angeles, and Spanish 
influence still dominates the architecture of the most 
beautiful of the show places, although it is not to these 
one must go for the old-time atmosphere. To wander 

217 



"OUR LADY, QUEEN GF THE ANGELS" 

through the Plaza in the original section of the city 
among lounging brown-skinned Mexicans or to drift 
into the Plaza church amid a group of devout wor- 
shipers is to live for a day at least in dear Old Mexico. 

Nearby is Chinatown, less splendid than the great 
new Chinatown of San Francisco, but in many ways 
more picturesque, best visited in the Chinese New- Year 
season when the narrow streets and overhanging bal- 
conies are resplendent with lighted lanterns and an 
atmosphere of festivity penetrates even the temples. 
This is the time when one's laundryman — for he is 
invariably Chinese in Los Angeles — tucks fascinating 
packages of tea and delicious candied ginger into one's 
bundle, smiling good wishes over the snowy linen. Chi- 
nese costumes still are seen occasionally on Broadway, 
and Chinese shops tempt the tourist in a thousand ways. 

Then there's a cosmopolitan quality about Los Angeles, 
born of the rubbing together of many people from far 
and near, for the city is still pre-eminently a tourist 
center, which no visitor to California ever neglects to see. 

A GARDEN CITY 

Of the newer sections of Los Angeles its people are 
justly proud, for there are a rapidly increasing number 
of fine buildings and the residence streets are all park- 
like and yet individual, even the humblest bungalow 
adding its quota of beauty. One must not expect to 
see too many flowers in the summer, but in the spring 
roses riot gloriously for expression, golden poppies spat- 
ter sunshine over vacant spaces and the tiniest garden 
spot offers its share of splendor. Geraniums clamber 
to the second-story, bursting gorgeously to bloom at 
218 



"OUR LADY, QUEEN OF THE ANGELS'* 

one's very bedroom window; peach and cherry blos- 
soms send one dreaming of Japan, and here and there 
an orange tree makes one's senses faint with its per- 
fume. Beautiful, too, are the trees of this garden city — 
palm trees rising high into the sky as if to lift their skirts 
above any possible contamination, sweet-smelling acacias, 
graceful pepper trees, with their delicate coral berries 
and their fern-like foliage flinging exquisite lace patterns 
on the sunny sidewalks, shaggy aromatic eucalyptus, 
majestic live oaks, in contour reminiscent of the cedars 
of Lebanon, and now and again an orange tree, never 
very large but always symmetrical, with glossy foliage 
and gleaming golden fruit. 

Though pre-eminently a residence city, Los Angeles 
is steadily growing in commercial importance. It has 
recently annexed San Pedro as a harbor, and extensive 
improvements have been made to enable vessels of the 
deepest draft to come to its wharves. 

THE LONGEST AQUEDUCT IN THE WORLD 

This work, however, is not so spectacular an achieve- 
ment as the acquirement by the city of water rights 
extending for many miles along the banks of the Owens 
River, in Inyo County. Water is now brought to the 
city, a distance of 240 miles, by means of an aqueduct 
and more than twenty miles of tunnels. This gives Los 
Angeles a supply of pure water from the snow-clad 
slopes of the highest mountains in the United States, 
sufficient for a population of two millions, so that not 
only will the city be amply supplied for many years, 
but there will be enough surplus to irrigate nearly all 
the available land in the county. The aqueduct is the 

219 



"OUR LADY, QUEEN OF THE ANGELS" 

longest in the world and carries ten times as much water 
as all the aqueducts of Rome combined. 

THE MISSION PLAY 

No visitor to Los Angeles, perhaps, fails to visit Pas- 
adena, a city of beautiful residences and rare gardens, 
or the ostrich farm at South Pasadena. San Gabriel 
Mission, one of the historic missions of California, now 
a landmark in a squatting half-Spanish village, where 
in 1915 the Mission play, recounting the early history 
of the state, was daily given, should not be forgotten 
and no one who saw that impressive little production, 
more like the spectacle of Oberammergau than anything 
America has ever produced, could ever quite forget this 
humble place. 

THE ENCHANTED ISLE 

The beaches of Santa Monica, Long Beach, Redondo, 
Ocean Park, Venice, etc., are all popular excursions, but 
the call of Santa Catalina Island is more alluring, for 
to discover cormorants and other strange birds and fly- 
ing fish, with their wings glittering in the sun; to see 
the most magic of islands, all mountains and cliffs and 
rocky gorges, rise out of the blue waters ahead, more 
beautiful than Sorrento — these are some of the joys of 
a trip to Avalon. But the greatest surprise is the Marine 
Gardens, with their wonderful shell-fish, ocean forests 
of kelp and brilliant fishes of a thousand colors, darting 
like flashes of light among the miniature mountains of 
the sea floor. These and many other wonders of the 
deep are revealed by the glass-bottom boats peculiar 
to this place. Avalon has other attractions, too — 
220 




Photo by Brown Bros. 

Merced River. . The dome ^s AM and wo^^^^^^ 

tS,^y^tSL^?::Z^r^t^:if^^rW^^ haJ is one of the riddles of th. 
stupendous valley. 




Copyright by Unaerwood and Underwood, N. Y. 

A Lordly Pillar in one of "God's First Temples." "Grizzly Giant," a 
redwood in Mariposa Grove, California, one of the most wonderful of all wonder- 
ful sishts in the West. 



"OUR LADY, QUEEN OF THE ANGELS" 

bathing, of course, and fish of fabulous size. The lure 
of the tuna has drawn sportsmen from all over the world. 

TO REDLANDS AND THE ORANGE GROVES 

Chief of the longer trips to be taken from Los Angeles 
is that on the "Kite-shaped Track" to Riverside and 
Redlands, to drive through sunny orange groves and 
look out upon acres of them from the summit of Smiley 
Heights, to climb Mt. Rubidoux and worship nature at 
the foot of its picturesque cross, and to stay for a night 
at least in one of the few hotels in the land that has a 
distinct individuality. The Glenwood Inn at Riverside 
was designed and built by a Californian and has gath- 
ered to itself and celebrated all that was most beautiful 
in the Spanish missions of the early days. It is an 
enduring monument to the history of that ancient time 
and a place where the twentieth-century tourist may 
well delight to linger and find peace. 



221 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THE YOSEMITE VALLEY AND THE 
BIG TREES 

AMONG GIANT WALLS OF ROCK — YOSEMITE FALLS — 

THE TRIBUTARY CANYONS TREES EIGHT THOUSAND 

YEARS OLD. 

IN THE little valley of the Yosemite, containing only 
six square miles of territory, and shut in by sheer walls 
from three to five thousand feet high, their sides washed 
by wondrous sheets of water that tumble into the valley 
over precipices from three hundred to 2,600 feet high, 
is probably contained more beauty and grandeur than 
can be found in anything like the same limited area 
anywhere else in the world. 

Entering the vaUey, the most striking object is its 
northwestern buttress, the ponderous cliff El Capitan, 
rising 3,300 feet at a very narrow part, its majestic 
form dominating the view. On the opposite side, form- 
ing the other portal, rise the imposing Cathedral Rocks, 
adjoined by the two slender Cathedral Spires of splin- 
tered granite, nearly three thousand feet high. Over 
these rocks on their western side pours the Bridal Veil 
Fall, so called because the winds often make the foaming 
column flutter like a white veil. Adjoining El Capitan 
descends the Ribbon Fall, or the Virgin's Tears, falling 
two thousand feet, but losing much of its waters as the 
summer advances. East of El Capitan are the peaks 
222 



THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 

called the Three Brothers, the highest also named the 
Eagle Peak, rising three thousand feet. 

YOSEMITE FALLS 

To the east of this peak and in a recess near the center 
of the valley are the Yosemite Falls, one of the highest 
waterfalls in the world. Yosemite Creek, which comes 
over the brink with a breadth of thirty-five feet, descends 
2,500 feet in three leaps. It pom-s down a vertical wall, 
the Upper Fall descending nearly fifteen hundred feet 
without a break. The column of water sways as the 
winds blow with marvelous grace of motion, and the 
eddying mists fade into hght summer clouds above. 
The Middle Fall is a series of cascades descending over 
six hundred feet, and the Lower Fall is four hundred 
feet high. There is a high and splendid ice cone formed 
at the foot of the Upper Fall in the winter. Alongside, 
from a projection called Yosemite Point, is given one 
of the best views of the famous valley. 

THE TRIBUTARY CANYONS 

At the head of the Yosemite, the canyon divides into 
three narrow tributary canyons, each discharging a 
stream, which uniting form the Merced. The northern- 
most is the Tenaya, and overshadowing it rises the huge 
North Dome, more than 3,700 feet high, having as an 
outlying spur the Washington Column. Opposite, and 
forming the eastern boundary of the valley, is the Simth 
or Half Dome, of singular shape, towering almost five 
thousand feet, and like El Capitan, at the other extrem- 
ity, being a most remarkable granitic cliff. Its top is 
inaccessible, although once it was scaled by an adven- 

223 



THE YOSEMlfE VALLEY 

turous explorer by means of a rope attached to pegs 
driven into the rock. It is one of the most extraordinarily 
formed mountains in existence, standing up tall, gaunt 
and almost square against the sky, the dominating pin- 
nacle of the upper valley. Upon the southern side 
rises Glacier Point, giving a splendid view over the 
valley, having to the westward the Sentinel Dome, end- 
ing in the conspicuous face of the Sentinel Rock. Just 
within Tenaya Canyon is Mirror Lake, remarkable for 
its wonderful reflections of the North and South Domes 
and adjacent mountains. Some distance to the east is 
the Cloud's Rest, a peak rising more than six thousand 
feet above the valley and nearly ten thousand feet above 
sea-level, that is ascended for its splendid view of the 
surrounding mountains and the enclosing walls of the 
valley, which can be plainly seen throughout its length, 
stretching far away toward the setting sun. 

TREES EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS OLD 

On the stage ride to the Yosemite, the Mariposa and 
Calaveras groves of Big Trees are passed. These red- 
wood trees (Sequoia gigantea) are a most interesting 
feature of the Yosemite region. Some of them are cal- 
culated by scientists to be not less than eight thousand 
years old and they occasionally attain a height of over 
four hundred feet, with limbs seven feet thick and cinna- 
mon-colored bark sometimes three feet in thickness. 
The wood is beautiful in color, easily worked and prac- 
tically imperishable. 

Farther south, in the Sequoia National Park, are over 
three thousand of these giants, each more than three 
hundred feet high. Among them man is dwarfed into 
224 




(^ < 



THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 

insignificance indeed, and his lifetime seems an inconse- 
quential period in comparison with theirs. Stung to 
reverence by their majesty it is not difficult to believe 
that 

"The groves were God's first temples" 

or that man before he fashioned the great cathedrals of 
the world received inspiration in natural wooded aisles. 



16 225 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
THE GUARDIAN OF THE GOLDEN GATE 

SAN FRANCISCO, THE PHCENIX CITY ^A GREAT SEA- 
PORT BEAUTIFUL BERKELEY COSMOPOLITAN GAYETY 

WHEN THE Franciscan monks built their chain of 
monasteries along the coast from San Diego north, look- 
ing over the beautiful panorama of mountain-girded 
bay, rolling hills and flowering vaUeys, they gave to the 
settlement about which the great city has grown up the 
name of their beloved saint, San Francisco. Built upon 
numerous hills, many of which bear names that have 
become famous in the days since the first discovery of 
gold, the city rises above a bay dotted with islands on 
the shores of which the sunny lowlands and foothills 
reach back to the mountains whose summits are veiled 
in mist. 

THE PHCENIX CITY 

Although almost completely annihilated by the quake 
and fire of 1906, San Francisco is today a better and 
more interesting city than ever before. The results 
which have been accomplished in so short a time are 
not only marvelous, but astonishing, and the masterful 
public spirit, so plainly evident on every hand, is proof 
that San Francisco always expects to wield the scepter 
of commercial supremacy on the Pacific Coast. Much 
of the city's pre-eminence is due to its location on San 
226 



GUARDIAN OF THE GOLDEN GATE 

Francisco Bay, which affords one of the finest harbors 
in the world, extensive enough in area to house innumer- 
able fleets, and well enough protected by the surrounding 
hills to make it well-nigh impregnable. 

A GREAT SEAPORT 

As a result of its location as related to the trade of 
the Pacific, San Francisco is the first city of California. 
It is the natural gateway to and from Hawaii, Samoa, 
Australia, the Philippines and the Orient, and is the 
railroad center and commercial metropolis of the Pacific 
Coast, and one of the great seaports of the United States. 
Ships of every nation are seen in its harbor. 

Its export trade has growTi in recent years to unex- 
pected proportions and regular lines of steamships to 
Honolulu, Nagasaki, Yokohama, Hongkong, and Manila, 
down the coast to South American ports, and north to 
Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, Vancouver and Alaskan 
ports, leave the city wharves at regular intervals. The 
opening of the Panama Canal found San Francisco ready 
for new ventures, and the Panama-Pacific Exposition 
found a fit dwelling-place here. 

BEAUTIFUL BERKELEY 

Across the bay at Berkeley is the University of Cali- 
fornia, the state university, attended last year by more 
than eight thousand students, and second only in size 
to Columbia. The campus wdth its magnificent old 
oaks, the natural beauty of its background of rounded 
hiUs commanding a clear sweep of the bay and Golden 
Gate, its beautiful Greek Theater and graceful Campanile 
make it famous among institutions of learning. 

227 



GUARDIAN OF THE GOLDEN GATE 

COSMOPOLITAN GAYETY 

San Francisco itself is a city of cosmopolitan gayety, 
whose people love to gather in brilliant caf^s and move 
in body and spirit to the movement of the latest dance. 
This Paris of the West is beloved of many tourists, and 
its quaint Chinatown alone, with its exotic appeal, is 
knowTi from one end of the country to the other. 



228 



CHAPTER XXIX 
WITHIN THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

GORGEOUS SETTING OF THE PANAMA-PACIFIC EXPOSI- 
TION THE GENERAL PLAN WONDERFUL COURTS 

THE COURT OF ABUNDANCE THE COURT OF THE 

FOUR SEASONS THE EXHIBIT PALACES SCULPTURE 

AN EXPOSITION OF COLOR *'tHE ZONe" TOYLAND 

GROWN UP THE AEROSCOPE EXPOSITION GROUNDS 

RAILWAY CONTESTS AND ATHLETICS. 

A BIG EVENT like the completion of the Panama 
Canal demands world recognition, and despite the 
unsettled condition of commerce and transportation due 
to the war in Europe the Panama-Pacific International 
Exposition opened February 20, 1915, with due splendor. 
Cahfornia, always a land of enchantment to the traveler, 
seemed a fit setting for the celebration, and San Francisco, 
with its magnificent land-locked harbor midway along the 
coast, offered a perfect site. 

The beautiful new '^walled city within a city, " covering 
an area of 635 acres, accordingly arose. The place 
selected, a crescent upon the shores of San Francisco 
Bay, just within the Golden Gate, was not only 
extremely picturesque from a natural point of view, but 
particularly adapted to the purposes for which it was 
set aside. The buildings and their surrounding courts 
and gardens were, moreover, planned to harmonize with 
the natural surroundings — huge architectural blocks 

229 



UUllllJUUUL 




13 Ox) 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

massed about great courts; buildings blazing with 
wonderful colors and the sheen of gold; gardens, a glory 
of tropical foliage and beautiful statuary. 

On the south, east, and west the grounds were encircled 
by towering hills, varying in height from 250 to 900 feet 
above sea-level, forming a great natural amphitheater. 
To the north San Francisco Bay, island-studded and 
alive with the shipping which makes San Francisco the 
western gateway to the Orient and the eastern gateway 
to the Occident, formed a part of the theater, and to the 
northwest the beautiful Golden Gate, a fitting portal. 

Upon the central portion of the plateau, fronting the 
bay, the main exposition palaces presented to the visitor 
the effect of an almost solid massing of a great walled 
city of the Orient, with outside walls rising as high as the 
average six-story city block, and with golden domes above 
them towering to heights of 250, 350, and 430 feet. 

THE GENERAL PLAN 

The main palaces were set back at a distance of some 
350 feet from the water's edge, giving space for a marine 
promenade or esplanade which was the chief point of 
vantage for those viewing maritime spectacles of the 
exposition. The esplanade was among the show spots of 
the exposition and was elaborately landscaped. Myrtle, 
cypress, eucalyptus and great beds of hardy flowers con- 
trasted with the imposing fagades and lofty colonnades 
of the great palaces. Eight of the palaces of the center 
group were set in a rectangle, four facing the harbor on 
the north and four facing the hills of the city. The 
walls of the eight buildings were interconnected, forming 
a great outside wall unbroken save by a series of stu- 

231 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

pendous archways and entrances giving access to the 
courts between the buildings. The buildings in this 
group comprised the palaces of Education, Varied In- 
dustries, Manufactures, Mines and Metallurgy, Liberal 
Arts, Transportation, Agriculture and Food Products. 

From afar the group presented the effect of almost a 
single palace, but nearer it was found to be divided from 
north to south by three great courts and their approaches 
— ^the Court of the Universe, in its center; the east court, 
the Court of Abundance, dividing the group upon the 
east, and the great west court, the Court of the Four 
Seasons, dividing it upon the west. Like the courts 
of the palaces of the Orient, these courts revealed the 
richest treasures of the exposition architecture, harmony 
and color. Flanking the walled city on the east was 
the Palace of Machinery, the largest single structure 
at the exposition. The Palace of Fine Arts, classical in 
the simplicity of its architecture, that of the Italian 
Renaissance, flanked the walled city upon the west and 
nearest the Golden Gate. 

WONDERFUL COUETS 

The Court of the Universe seated seven thousand 
persons in its central sunken gardens. Its principal 
features were the two great arches — the Arch of the 
Rising Sun and the Arch of the Setting Sun. The former 
was surmounted by an Oriental group symbolical of the 
Far East, while the latter bore an immense group en- 
titled ''The Nations of the West," showing the pioneers 
of all races who have settled the western part of the 
American continents from Alaska to the southern extrem- 
ity of South America, 
232 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

The court resembled somewhat in shape the great 
plaza approaching St. Peter's at Rome. On the south 
it was dominated by a great tower gateway, the lofty 
Tower of Jewels, 435 feet in height, surmounted by an 
enormous globe, typifying the world. The shaft, pyram- 
idal in shape and richly sculptured, rose in lofty ter- 
races from a base 125 feet square through which a vaulted 
archway had been cut. The general details of the court 
were of Italian Renaissance with a suggestion of Byzantine 
influence, while the idea of the east and west arches 
was inspired by the triumphal arches of Imperial 
Rome. 

THE COURT OF ABUNDANCE 

The Court of Abundance or great east court was rich 
with Oriental suggestion. The earth, from the creation 
to the ultimate, was the theme which the architect 
ambitiously selected for the court. In the center was 
a still pool of dark water from which rose mysteriously 
bubbles of inflammable gas which ignited upon exposure 
to the air. Great jets of steam under high pressure played 
over the surface of the pool and were forced from various 
openings in the side of the court, causing a misty haze 
to hang like fog banks over the interspace between 
palaces. The walls of the court were treated with giant 
columns and a tower rose at its north end. 

THE COURT OF THE FOUR SEASONS 

, The Court of the Four Seasons paralleled the Court 
of the Universe upon the west. The theme of this 
court was the wealth which nature has lavished upon 
the pioneer who has ever pushed forward to the west. 

233 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

The statuary in the court was particularly notable and 
Hadrian's villa was the source of its inspiration. 

In this court, as in all others, through the use of the 
imitation travertine marble the suggestion of plaster 
and stucco was eliminated and the impression given of 
a dream-city of palaces constructed of rare marble, soft 
in tint and tone and of enduring construction. 

Notes of contrast to the beautiful soft tones of the 
marble were gained by the integral castings of columns 
in replica of red Sienna or Numidian marble, or a verd- 
antique in bronze or gold, but even in these the strati- 
fied texture of the original surfaces was reproduced and 
the general treatment adhered to. For the decorations 
of the walls all of the figures were made of the same 
material, which was unprecedented in exposition con- 
struction and designing. 

THE EXHIBIT PALACES 

The north and south outside walls of the central 
group of eight exhibit palaces had a liberal treatment 
of the plateresque, which is so called because of its like- 
ness to the work of silversmiths. The east and west 
walls of the main group were after the Italian Renais- 
sance. The total length of this superb group east and 
west was 2,756 feet and its total length north and south 
was 1,235 feet. 

Flanking the central group upon the east was the 
great Palace of Machinery, the impressive architecture 
of which recalled the baths of the Emperor Hadrian. 
The architecture was essentially Roman and the decora- 
tion while classic in form was suggestive of modern 
machinery and invention. The principal architectural 
234 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

features of the palace were three central longitudinal 
naveS; with a secondary aisle on either side. 

The composition of the Palace of Horticulture was 
Saracenic and similar in its arrangement of domes and 
minarets to the famous Mosque of Sultan Ahmed I at 
Constantinople. In detail and ornamentation the sug- 
gestion was of the eighteenth century French Renais- 
sance and the wooden trellis work was derived from the 
architecture of the Louis XIV period in France. The 
immense dome was composed almost entirely of glass as 
were the walls and roof. 

The beautiful Palace of Fine Arts, built of steel and 
concrete, was curved in plan with its east and west 
elevations forming parallel arcs, half-encompassing an 
immense pool of still water which reflected its archi- 
tecture. 

The Festival Hall, in which many of the principal 
theatrical features of the exposition were staged, had the 
usual theater arrangement of a foyer in front and the 
stage behind a circular auditorium. The architect con- 
ceived his plan of the building from a study of the 
Theatre des Beaux Arts type of French architecture 
and handled it in an exceptionally successful manner. 

SCULPTURE 

The plan of the sculpture for the exposition was 
designed to form a sequence from the first piece that 
greeted the visitor on his entrance from the city on the 
south throughout the courts and the circuit of the en- 
closing walls. Entering from the city through the 
South Gardens, between Festival Hall and Horticultural 
Hall, the visitor was first confronted with a great eques- 

235 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

trian fountain symbolizing the creation of the Isthmian 
waterway between the oceans — the Fountain of Energy. 
This was outlined against the lofty opening of the arch- 
way of the Tower of Jewels, and was achieved as an 
imaginative equestrian group representing Energy — the 
Victor. The figure of a splendid nude youth, mounted 
on a spirited horse, was depicted as advancing steadily 
through the waters, while the attendant figures of Valor 
and Fame formed an encircling crest above his stern 
head. 

Passing beneath the arch, after viewing this monu- 
ment and entering the Court of the Universe beneath 
the great friezes of color, the visitor arrived in a vast 
oval courtyard around which colonnades swept to the 
right and to the left. On the central axis in these direc- 
tions were the two triumphal arches, 160 feet high, 
crowned by the great symbolical groups ''The Nations 
of the East" and ''The Nations of the West." These 
massive compositions placed upon the huge triumphal 
arches from San Francisco harbor stood out in silhouette 
among the vast domes and pinnacles of the Exposition 
City. 

The two main free monuments of the court were the 
fountains of the Rising and the Setting Sun, occupying 
positions relatively east and west. The upper portions 
of the fountains were the sources of the night illumina- 
tion of the court. Great globes surmounted by figures 
representing a sunburst and sunset, tj^ifying the rising 
and the setting sun, gave forth at night an incandescent 
glow, while below in the basins reclining figures of the 
planets surmounted globes of light, behind which the 
water fell in screens. 
236 




aj o 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

At the level of descent into the sunken garden, in 
which were placed the fountains of the Rising and the 
Setting Sun, titanic figures in horizontal compositions 
of the four elements, Fire, Water, Earth and Air, were 
designed. These, on a great scale and placed close to 
the ground, were given a most symbolically imaginative 
rendering and were of great interest. On the upper 
ramps of the sunken garden of the Court of the Uni- 
verse, in positions in front of the arches, were two ver- 
tical groups of two figures each, representing ''Order 
and Chaos" and ''Eternity and Change." 

Above each of the columns of the colonnade a hover- 
ing figure with a jeweled head, representing a scintillating 
star, was placed. 

Advancing down the forecourt one saw a pool of 
placid water in which the Tower of Jewels was reflected. 
At the end of the forecourt and fronting the Bay of San 
Francisco, on the sea esplanade, was erected a great 
figured column, the "Column of Progress." This could 
be seen prominently from the bay and marked the 
entrance to the Court of the Universe. Converging 
about the square base of the column a stream of figures, 
embodying conceptions of the great spiritual divisions 
of mankind, advanced to the doorway in the center 
of the base, and as if having mounted within, a frieze 
of figures appeared surmounting the capital of the column 
160 feet from the ground, supporting by their united 
effort a single figure who spent his strength in launch- 
ing his arrow of adventurous progress. The capital of 
this column still further carried out the idea of move- 
ment and change in progress, for it was composed of 
wings and figures having a rotary motion. 

237 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

The Tower of Jewels was decorated with much sculp- 
ture of a purely ornamental kind, as weU as a repeated 
typical equestrian figure of an armored horseman. At 
the level of the spring of the great arch of the tower 
were pedestals which supported standing portrait statues 
of types of Philosopher, Adventurer, Priest, Soldier. 

AN EXPOSITION OF COLOR 

As seen from the hills of San Francisco the exposi- 
tion was a great parti-colored area perhaps best de- 
scribed as resembling a giant Persian rug of soft, melting 
tones — the roofs of the palaces a reddish pink, the color 
of Spanish tile; the domes green, and gold and blue set 
within the recesses of the towers. The general color 
plan was faint ivory, the color of travertine stone. 

It was a new field, this painting an entire city with 
the colors of the rainbow and the artist Jules Guerin, 
was responsible for the harmonious effect. Expositions 
of the past had been "White Cities" with the exception 
of slight uses of color, but the Panama-Pacific Interna- 
tional Exposition was a " Rainbow City," a poem of color. 

French green was used in all the lattices, flower tubs, 
curbing of grass plots (where it complemented the green 
of the grass), in the exterior wood work and in some 
of the smaller doors. Oxidized copper-green was re- 
flected by the domes on the exhibit palaces. The only 
exception to this color was the domes of the Court of 
the Universe, which were yellow. 

Blue-green was found in the ornamentation of the 
travertine and in a darker shade at the bases of the 
flag poles. Pinkish-rcd-orange was used on the tall flag 
poles. It was briUiant and always topped with gold 
238 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

and the scores that surrounded every building played 
an important part in the color scheme. '' There were 
three tones of the wall-red. They were found in the 
backgrounds of colonnades, backgrounds of courts, back- 
grounds of niches, on the tiled roofs and in the statuary. 
Yellow-golden-orange was used in enriching the tra- 
vertine and in heightening the shadow effects. Statu- 
aty high above the ground was of golden yellow and 
that which was close to the eye was of verd-antique, 
while much of it was left Vv^ith the natural travertine 
tint. In the ceilings and other vaulted recesses, in the 
deep shadows and in the background of ornamentation 
in which travertine rosettes were set, the deep cerulean 
blue was used. 

"the zone" 

The concessions at the exposition were unusual, not 
only for their high artistic value and great educational 
worth but also for the large outlay required in their 
presentation. The area devoted to them was a long 
narrow strip of sixty-five acres, opening out upon Van 
Ness Avenue, one of the principal boulevards of San 
Francisco, and leading thence westward to the main 
group of exhibit palaces. In the center of the district 
was a great "Plaza of Wonders," in which rose the high- 
est flag pole in the world, a giant fir 246 feet in height 
and over five feet in diameter at the base, donated by 
the citizens of Astoria, Oregon. 

TOYLAND GROWN UP 

Toyland Grown Up cost something like a million dol- 
lars to construct. It was its originator's idea to give 

239 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

to the people of all the world that for which they have 
been seeking eagerly for as far back as history takes 
us — a chance to renew their youth. 

Toy giants in our nursery days were six inches 
high. When exhibited in Toy land Grown Up they 
measured two hundred feet. Jack and the Bean 
Stalk of the nursery rhymes were realities and the 
Giant's House and the Giant's Kitchen were of giant 
proportions. Old Mother Hubbard's Cupboard accom- 
modated diners in the two lower shelves and the top 
shelf was the very last word in a commodious dancing 
floor. 

According to its inventor, Toyland Grown Up was 
not simply an architectural elaboration of toys: 
^'The toy was a delight in the days of knickerbockers 
and knee-high gingham dresses, but in this fourteen 
acre, two hundred-foot high collection it must form an 
environment for every grown-up thrill and delight of 
summer amusement; its circus, its riders, its chutes, 
its spectacles, its music and flowers, its flags and 
gayety and constant carnival — a grown-up kids' 
millionaire delirium of something doing every minute 
in a grown-up environment of health and youthful 
play." 

The theory that the best and most popular entertain- 
ment to be found in any great exposition or county 
fair consists in those features which make the spectator 
a part of the show prevailed at San Francisco. There 
were more places to ride, more places to frivol, more 
bumps to bump and more scenic treats underground 
and through mid-air, than had ever before been offered 
a show-going public. 
240 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

THE AEROSCOPE 

One of these, the Aeroscope, stood 264 feet high and 
a ride in it resembled an aerial jaunt over a down-town 
office building. If measured, the Aeroscope would stand 
seven stories higher than the Flatiron Building in New 
York. Infinite attention was devoted to making it a 
thing of safety as well as of comfort and pleasure and 
the outlook from on high insured its popularity. 

A great motion-picture building composed of ten 
separate theaters having a seating capacity of four 
thousand was another feature of the Zone. Here were 
shown moving pictures of the industries, the scenic 
beauties and all of the activities, commercial, artistic, 
scientific, etc., of the states and foreign nations par- 
ticipating in the exposition. 

In the Submarines visitors traveled beneath the 
waters of a great lagoon in models of the best types of 
submarines used in the world's navies, from the port- 
holes of the boats looking out upon a marine panorama 
attractively setting forth the changes in ocean life from 
the tropics to the frigid zone. 

The Panama Canal concession was a great working 
model of the Panama Canal with a capacity of handling 
two thousand sightseers through its locks every half 
hour. Scenes in the Canal Zone were reproduced and 
the visitor was treated to a running lecture upon the 
operation of the canal. 

The Evolution of the Dreadnaught portrayed the de- 
velopment of the modern battleship from the old wooden 
frigate of early colonial days. In this panoramic repro- 
duction scenes of the famous battle between the Monitor 
and the Merrunac were reproduced. 

16 241 



THE PORTALS O^ INSPIRATION 

Another interesting wartime concession was that repro- 
ducing the battle of Gettysburg. The concession was 
very realistic and an actual road bordered by growing 
grain merged imperceptibly into the narrow lane of the 
battlefield. 

The Dayton Flood was a realistic production of the 
havoc wrought when the courageous American city was 
overwhelmed by the waters of the Ohio River. 

Among other notable concessions was the Australa- 
sian Village, the Alligator Farm, the Bowls of Joy, the 
Carousels, Creation, the Parsival Dirigible, the Forty- 
nine Camp, the Human Roulette, the Infant Incubator, 
Japan Beautiful, the Marine Gardens, Mahomet's Moun- 
tain, the Narren Palast, the Novelty Concession, Old 
Nuremberg, the Old Red Mill, the Oriental Village, the 
Ostrich Farm, the Samoan Village, and the reproduction 
of Yellowstone National Park. 

EXPOSITION GROUNDS RAILWAY 

A narrow-gage railway operated on the tracks extend- 
ing from a point near the Palace of Machinery, by way 
of the north side of the grounds to the race track, polo 
and athletic fields along the water front, was known as 
the Panacific Railway. This intra-mural acconmiodation 
was appreciated by visitors with but limited time for 
sightseeing, linking, as it did, the Zone at the eastern 
end of the exposition area with the area where so many 
special events were to be staged. 

And the Zone throughout was girdled, crowned, gem- 
med, starred, streaked, arched and rendered a thing of 
joy and splendor by lights, for each firm or individual 
employed had been given this general instruction, "Go 
242 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

as far as you like, but be sure we outshine all the other 
feUows." 

CONTESTS AND ATHLETICS 

World Series baseball was one of the features of the 
greatest athletic and sporting program ever given by 
an organization. Polo was played in the first world 
polo tournament; motor boats had a $10,000 race; two 
harness horse-racing meets carried away $227,000 in 
purses; amateur and professional boxing champions ap- 
peared in the squared arena; the Vanderbilt Cup auto- 
mobile race and other events enticed visitors from far 
and near. 

In keeping with the general plan of the exposition the 
Department of Live Stock was presented in a better 
manner than has usually characterized such exhibitions. 
Competitions for the $175,000 in prize money appro- 
priated by the exposition, and for the supplemental pre- 
miums offered by the breeders' associations, took place in 
the months of October and November. In addition to 
this there was a continuous live-stock display. In 
housing, classification and arrangements of the exhibits, 
the Department of Live Stock at San Francisco demon- 
strated the advancement that has been made since the 
last world's exposition. 

NATION-WIDE INTEREST 

In no sense was this exposition simply a California 
undertaking, for every state and all the people were 
alike interested. It was different from any prior world's 
fair. It surpassed all others as the industrial progress 
of the last decade during which the Panama Canal was 

243 



THE PORTALS OF INSPIRATION 

practically built, surpassed that of the previous half 
century. The world's economic and artistic accomplish- 
ments in the ten years preceding 1915 were assembled 
in the exhibit palaces and only the best in each art and 
craft was shown, so that in the vast display the visitor 
was not confused by articles of secondary worth. It 
glorified heroes now living. It placed a milestone in 
world progress toward the unknown future. 



244 



CHAPTER XXX 

A MAGIC CITY IN THE LAND OF HEART'S 

DESIRE 

ROMANTIC STAGING OF A MODERN INDUSTRIAL DRAMA 

PORTOLA AND HIS MEN FRAY SERRA's MIRACLE 

THE SPANISH TRADITIONS ^A NEW CITY OF OLD SPAIN 

THE OLD AND NEW IN EXPOSITIONS THE INTEN- 
SIVE FARM — "the PAINTED DESERT " — THE CLIMATE 
AS CONTRIBUTOR. 

FEW PERSONS who have felt the speU of CaUfomia's 
exuberant sunshine fail to respond to its call, and espe- 
cially is this true of San Diego, the garden city of the 
Southwest, a very real and abiding Land of Heart's 
Desire. The celebration which California and San Diego 
planned for 1915 had accordingly the charm of a pic- 
turesque background and perfect climate, with a wealth 
of romantic association. 

To understand fully the spirit back of the Panama- 
California Exposition, indeed, it is necessary to know 
something about the history of the Southwest. It is four 
hundred years since Balboa went beyond the point which 
Christopher Columbus had reached in 1492, crossed the 
Isthmus and from the highlands looked down on the 
Pacific. We have all read how, rushing down to the sea 
and planting the banner of Spain in the ocean, he 
claimed for his country all the lands it touched. 

It was a claim which was rather extravagant even in 

245 



A MAGIC CITY 



those days, and it was not until 1542 that an expedition 
started north to see what these lands were. Juan 
Rodrigues Cabriilo, a Portuguese adventurer in the 
service of Spain, headed the party, and it is recorded that 
in that year he sailed to San Diego and anchored in the 
Harbor of the Sun. For a long time the port went under 
the name of San Miguel, and it was not until many 
years later that the name of San Diego was substituted. 
Early in the next century there came Viscaino, and 
he had landed, leading the second Spanish party to 
touch on the west coast, before Samuel de Champlain 
carried the lihes of France up the St. Lawrence and into 
what is now American territory, before Hudson carried 
the Dutch flag into New York harbor, and before the 
English pilgrims landed at Plymouth in New England. 

PORTOLA AND HIS MEN 

Thus the west coast had a big start, but conditions in 
Spain were not such as to make possible the immediate 
settlement of the land so discovered. There were interior 
dissensions and there was trouble in the colonies; also 
there were long European wars, and it was not until 
1769 that a really serious expedition started out from 
Mexico with Portola, the first governor of Lower 
California, in charge of the party. The sailors and 
adventurers who had come more than two centuries 
before, had hved only a httle time and then sailed away 
leaving nothing to show for their coming except the 
maps and narratives; but in 1769 the arrival was of a 
different sort, for with Portola there came a gallant 
priest. Fray Junipero Serra, as the head of a httle party 
of Franciscans who came not to discover, but to live, 
246 



A MAGIC CITY 



to colonize, to civilize, and to lay the foundation for a 
glorious new Spain in the western world. It is reported 
how the little colony established a garrison on Presidio 
Hill just above the sea, and waited for reinforcements 
to arrive; how the reinforcements failed to come when 
expected, and for a long time after; how the soldiers 
finally became disheartened and ill and demanded that 
they return to the south, and how Fray Serra implored 
the leader to wait just a little longer. The limit was 
reached and the priest was told that on that day the 
return must be started. 

''Just one more day," he begged. And he begged so 
strongly that the commander consented to remain ''one 
more day." 

FRAY SERRA's MIRACLE 

And then Fray Serra went to the crest of the hill 
and prayed all through the afternoon up until evening. 
Finally, in despair, he gave once more the forlorn glance 
to sea, and there was a sight which sent him rushing down 
into camp shouting and weeping with joy. He had seen 
a distant sail. Up the slope dashed the soldiers and 
sailors, until they too beheld the wonderful sight. 

The trip to the south was delayed; the sail grew 
larger and larger; and there came into port a party who 
had mistaken the chart and had been cruising up and 
down the coast looking vainly for the harbor which was 
charted. The pious priest thought it a miracle, and 
perhaps it was. At any rate the settlement became 
permanent, the little mission at the Presidio was aban- 
doned and several miles up the Mission Valley was 
founded the mission of San Diego de Alcala. With that 

247 



A MAGIC* CITY 



started and with a small number of Indians helping the 
priests that were left in charge, Fray Serra marched on to 
the north, founding at forty-mile intervals along the road 
which was to become El Camino Real, the King's High- 
way, those picturesque missions which still add so much of 
romance to the California landscape. Twenty-one of 
these missions were finally founded, that there might be 
food and rest for man and beast at the end of the day's 
journey. Built of abode brick, these structures are simple 
and artistic and possessed of a dignity which the vicis- 
situdes and accidents of many years had left unmarred. 
Each of them nestles in some spot sheltered from the 
sea, surrounded by fertile fields, orchards and vine- 
yards. 

With the work at the north started. Fray Junipero 
Serra returned to San Diego, only to find that the 
supposedly peaceful Indians had rebelled while the 
soldiers far away on the shore slept, and had invaded 
the mission, threatening death to all. He heard how the 
brave Father Jaume, he of the white hair and the gentle 
face, had opened the door of the mission and gone out 
among the yelling madmen, his hands raised, telling his 
children to be peaceful; heard how the savages had 
allowed him to come within a few yards and then had 
riddled his body with arrows and thrown it into the 
little olive orchard which the priests had set out in front 
of the mission. The orchard is still standing and stiU 
bearing, and within it is a low wooden fence, with a plain 
cross, where sleeps the first Christian martyr of the 
west coast. Down the valley stands the last of the 
pahn trees which Fray Serra set out, apparently good for 
many years to come. Almost in its shade sleep the 
248 



A MAGIC CITY 



soldiers v/ho succumbed in the long wait for the relief 
party. 

^'The seed is sown," said Fray Serra gravely, and 
instead of abandoning the work he set out with renewed 
energy, rebuilt the mission, went on again to the north, 
founding more missions along El Camino Real, and 
never returned. 

THE SPANISH TRADITIONS 

There is a wealth of interest in history of that sort, 
and once we study the history of Southern California we 
see that the finest traditions, the rarest poetry and 
beauty are in the recollections of the old Spanish civili- 
zation. It was the realization of that beauty, almost 
forgotten, which impelled the San Diego exposition to 
choose a certain beautiful and harmonious type for its 
buildings — not the old conventional Greek and Roman 
temples such as expositions of the past had built, but 
quaint Spanish missions and cathedrals and palaces in 
perfect accord with the gorgeous beauty of the mighty 
landscape one sees from the mesa where the exposition 
was to stand. There were no forbidding walls, nor 
entrances so massive as to overwhelm the visitor, but a 
quiet, friendly beauty which spread over all. 

The visitor to the ''Magic City" in 1915 walked or 
rode up the slope from the water-front, burst through 
the border of trees along Balboa Park and came out at 
the end of a quarter-mile bridge whose seven white 
arches rose from a pool 135 feet below in the canyon. 
High up along the piers slim Italian cypress trees accent- 
uated the height of the great Puente Cabrillo. A Httle 
distance from the bridge one saw the jungle of palm and 

249 



A MAGIC -CITY 



eucalyptus and acacia, a gorgeous color scheme of green 
with occasional flashes of brilliant crimson and the gold 
of the California poppy. Walking the length of the 
bridge, and passing a trellis of roses, one reached a somber 
memorial arch whose cartouche had been chipped and 
worn so that it looked as though it might have stood 
there for centuries. As though some magic wand had 
been waved, one left behind as one passed through the 
arch all the hum and rush and roar of a twentieth cen- 
tury tidewater city and found himself in a city of old 
Spain. 

A NEW CITY OF OLD SPAIN 

At one side, rising from a succession of broad stone 
steps, stood a gorgeous old Spanish cathedral, with a 
wondrously intricate frontispiece, a great tiled dome of 
curious design and a lofty tower. Across the little 
plaza, connected on both sides by a tiled cloister, was 
a quiet mission of the California type with plain Spanish 
arches, and rough-hewn beams forming its ceiling and 
projecting from the adobe walls; and a little chapel and 
shrine such as those in all the old missions along El 
Camino Real. The Prado was lined wuth acacia, with 
verdant lawn, with a low hedge of poinsettia, gladiolus 
and other blooming flowers, and long cloisters on both 
sides ran from the west gate through to the east. 
Portals opened from the cloister and led into cool patios, 
in strong contrast to the dazzling sun of the Prado. The 
patios were filled with a collection of California's finest 
trees and shrubs and blooming plants, with bright flower- 
ing vines clambering up the sides of the white walls, up 
to the beUries where mission bells swung, up to the high 
250 



A MAGIC CITY 



domes and the quaint towers which looked down into 
the sharp shadows of that semi-tropical city. Almost 
hidden by drooping shrubs plashed an occasional 
fountain. 

About the walls of the buildings nested a horde of 
pigeons, swooping down occasionally after grain tossed 
out to them by the gardeners. Broad lawns with vine- 
covered pergolas stretched beyond the patios and out to 
the edge of the canyon where one could look down to the 
sea a mile away, to the strand of Coronado and Fort 
Rosecrans and out to the distant islands half hidden in 
the mist, or up the valleys across orchards of olive, 
orange and grape, or to the foothills of the Sierras, or to 
the lower hills of old Mexico scarcely twenty miles away. 
The whole atmosphere was that of an old Spanish city, 
such a city perhaps as Cabrillo and his bearded sailors 
dreamed of as they stood on the same site nearly four 
hundred years ago and looked out toward the sea and 
forward to the hope of a New Spain. 

The Spanish atmosphere had been carried out to the 
finest detail. The guards and attendants of the exposi- 
tion were garbed as caballeros and conquistadores and 
the dancing girls who moved to the hum of the guitar 
and the mandolin and the click of the castanet, were 
Spanish dancing girls in the bright costumes of old 
Spain, in the dances which had been performed for 
hundreds of years in the plazas of Castile. It was all 
very quaint and very romantic and very beautiful. 
Down the Prado stretched the buildings, some of cathe- 
dral design, some of old mission, some of the palace, and 
one or two bearing a particularly strong touch of Moorish 
influence, but all uniformly and quaintly Spanish. 

251 



A MAGIC' CITY 



Here, then, was the new type of exposition architecture 
— not altogether new, however, since it was really a 
renaissance of the beautiful architecture which received 
such a glorious start in Mexico and Southern Cahfornia, 
but new as used in exposition work. 

THE OLD AND NEW IN EXPOSITIONS 

And just as novelty had been introduced in that, so 
was it introduced in the style and general purposes of 
the exposition. 

Instead of competing with the Panama-Pacific Exposi- 
tion at San Francisco, San Diego complemented it, 
supplying features which could exist only v^ith the 
co-operation of the extraordinary climate which could 
produce the orange orchard, the tea plantation, and the 
overwhelming growth of vine and shrub and tree and 
flower which swarmed up from the deep canyons and 
over the walls toward the ^' Magic City." The keynote 
was ''everything in motion" and almost everything 
within the waUs that was not turning or spinning was 
growing. The idea was not the showing of finished pro- 
ducts so much as products in the process of being made. 
Here was industrial activity against a background of 
singular natural and cultivated beauty. An orchard, a 
farm and the plants of tropical seas blossomed before the 
eyes. 

THE INTENSIVE FARM 

The world's fair of the past showed the products of 
the soil, displayed a handsome pyramid of oranges, a 
stack of apples, or numerous crates of vegetables, but 
there was little in that which was different from what the 
252 




El Prado, the Main Street op the City Beautiful. Haunting vistas of cool 
patios and shadowy cloisters with clinging bougainvUlea in gorgeous bursts of color, 
and the more delicate wistaria and rose, enhanced the beauty of this wonder city 
of the Southwest. 



A MAGIC CITY 



city man could see by walking to the corner grocery in 
his home town. These exhibits were handled differently 
at San Diego. For example, there was not displayed a 
pyramid of oranges; rather a great citrus orchard whose 
trees were selected from the finest orchards of Southern 
California and on these trees were growing lemon and 
orange and grape fruit and kumquat and tangerine, the 
trees blooming and bearing within reach of the visitor's 
hand. This, certainly one of the most important features 
of the display of the southern counties of California, was 
situated on the Alameda, and directly across the road 
was another impressive exhibit of the southern counties 
— the model intensive farm. To the north lay the 
exhibit of the International Harvester Company, show- 
ing not machinery in a great hall, but machinery in 
operation on a large tract sown to various cereals and 
grasses, where the heaviest tractors, the steam plows, 
the harvesters, the reapers, were doing the work of a 
hundred men, moving up and down the field and work- 
ing as they went, doing just what they are supposed to 
do in large-scale farm operation. 

So much for the appeal to the man with sufficient 
money and brawn to operate a large-scale farm. But 
many men are not equipped for carrying on such work, 
and it is for that class that financially the intensive farm 
of the southern counties carries the great appeal. On a 
model five-acre tract there were growing trees of pear 
and peach and apple and loquat and cherry and Enghsh 
walnut, and beneath these trees were a thousand rows of 
vegetables, some northern, some semi-tropical, but all 
bearing in profusion, thanks to the irrigation and scien- 
tific intensive cultivation, bearing nearly four or five 

253 



A MAGIC-CITY 



times as much as a tract of similar area could possibly 
bear under old-style methods. In one comer was the 
model vineyard, bearing the best grapes of which Cali- 
fornia is capable of producing . In the rear, partly con- 
cealed by a trellis of clematis, was a model poultry yard. 

And while the prospective farmer was seeing how 
modern scientific farming saved a tremendous amount of 
the energy which his father spent on acres back east, the 
wife of this prospective farmer visited the model bunga- 
low in the center of the farm and saw that just as 
machinery is saving her husband work, so is machinery 
saving her house work in the drudgery of the laundry 
and the kitchen, and allowing her time to be with the 
family or with the neighbors. 

And the spirit with which the agricultural work was 
carried out in the San Diego exhibition marks the spirit 
of all the other exhibits. There is an entirely human 
desire to ''watch the wheels go round," and the man who 
would not stand a second looking at something which 
he sees every day in its finished product form, will stand 
a long time looking at that same product in the process 
of making. Hence, the manufacturers who exhibited 
in the various buildings along the Prado showed, not 
the finished products, but the processes by which the 
products are made. 

''the painted desert" 

In some measure the same is true of the way in which 
the Santa Fe railroad created its "Painted Desert," the 
most remarkable Indian exhibit which the country has 
seen. Just within the north gate it stood, covering 
several acres, surrounded by an adobe wall with occa- 
254 



A MAGIC CITY 



sional gaps of cedar-post stockade. Through the center 
of this tract running north and south was a high mesa, 
and the rocks and the soil and the inner walls were 
painted with the vivid colors of the real Painted Desert 
in Arizona; in fact, much of the rock and the cedar posts 
and other materials were brought there from Arizona 
and New Mexico so that the picture might be as nearly 
exact as possible. In one side of the mesa were cut a 
few cliff- dwellings such as one sees in his tours through 
the Southwest, and below the mesa at the west clear 
on to the Alameda was the reserve where wandering 
tribes were living their natural life, the Navajos weaving 
rugs and blankets and the other red men from the plains 
living just as they do in the places they have occupied 
for hundreds of years. 

So, too, down ''The Isthmus," the ''Midway" of the 
exposition, a few of the concessionaires strayed from the 
old lines and showed processes just as did the industrial 
enterprises along the Alameda and Prado. A motion- 
picture house, for example, exhibited, not only a motion- 
picture theater and films, but the studio in which the 
films were made, staging the comedies in and about the 
buildings of the exposition grounds. 

THE CLIMATE IS CONTRIBUTOR 

Of course climate was responsible for many of the 
finest features of San Diego's 1915 exposition. Only 
the climate of Southern California could allow the 
exposition to open on New Year's eve with a big outdoor 
carnival, and only Southern California's climate could 
aUow that exposition to remain open all through the 
months when in other sections of the country it is winter 

256 



A MAGIC CITY 



and spring and fall, and winter again, but months which 
in Southern California are always June. No other 
section of the~country could have had the gorgeous floral 
display which San Diego had, or could any other have 
had the tea plantation brought by Sir Thomas Lipton's 
agents from Ceylon. This exhibit started solely as an 
exhibit, but when it was found that the soil and climate 
of San Diego were so much Hke those of Ceylon, it was 
announced that this was rather an experiment, and that 
some day there might be in Southern Cahfornia a per- 
manent tea industry which would supply the demands 
of this country and Canada. When we reaUze that the 
American importations of tea last year were slightly in 
excess of 90,000,000 pounds we get an idea of what this 
industry may mean and we get also a very real concep- 
tion of the purposes of the Panama-California Exposition. 



*Thereare96 pages of illustrations in this book, which, added to the 256 
pages of text, make a total of 352 pages. 



352^ 



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